With AI-related risks being inherently global in nature, the hope and anticipation is that there will be a suitably robust regulatory environment wherever the technology is deployed, Michael Connor, Executive Director at Open MIC, tells ESG Investor.
“Many companies have global activities, so we need to ensure that if they are applying a higher standard in Europe due to EU regulations, this should be the case wherever they operate to foster greater corporate accountability in the deployment and use of digital technologies,” he says.
Shareholders in Home Depot and the advertising giant Omnicom have filed resolutions asking the companies to investigate whether the money they spent on advertisements may have helped spread hate speech and misinformation.
The resolutions were filed in November but were not made public until Monday. They were coordinated by Open MIC, a nonprofit group that works with shareholders at media and technology companies.
“We’re not Luddites, we’re not anti-technology,” said Michael Connor, the executive director of Open MIC, a nonprofit group that works with activist investors in the tech sector and helped draft the facial surveillance proposals with Amazon shareholders. “But we do think all these technologies have to be handled and introduced in a responsible way.”
