Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap

Leaders want the best for their organization. They do not want to go down in history as the ones who harmed or destroyed it, but rather as ones who encountered challenges and faced them, guiding their enterprise to a better future. Leadership requires knowledge, a clear vision, good judgment, the right resources, and leaving nothing to chance. And within those categories is another one, the foundation of not only good business practice, but all human society: ethics. Ethics is the bedrock upon which people build everything else. Good ethical relationships create trust, and trust is what every social institution relies upon. Without it, relationships fall apart, and if enough social relationships fall apart, one is no longer living in a society, but anarchy. While this book does not seek to address such large-scale social questions, it does directly address one of the most important levers of power in society: business and other organizations developing or working with advanced technologies. If some businesses and their technologies harm society, society will degrade, and if enough businesses and their technologies help society, society will improve. Enterprise leaders are not just business leaders, but also prominent leaders in society. They are looked up to and admired, or reviled, depending on the way they act. Their actions are fundamentally entangled with ethics, and they set the tone for their segment of society. And yet, if the choices of business leaders are so vital for the well-being of society, why would any make choices that are misaligned with this goal? There are many reasons, but one of them is simple lack of awareness and knowledge of how to set the right ethical tone across their organization and operationalize ethical thinking in every process in such a way that bad choices become less common, and hopefully quite rare. The purpose of this handbook is to empower business leaders and help them make a positive change in their companies – with the plan, tools, and resources that they need to operationalize these changes for the common good. We present it looking to continue a dialogue and invite responses. Ethics is never a finished work and so this handbook will develop over time as well. We look forward to your thoughts.