Ryan Carrier is Executive Director at ForHumanity/ President at ForHumanity Europe, a public charity operating in 98 countries that examines the impact of AI and autonomous systems on jobs, society, rights and freedoms, as well as the downside risks and challenges associated with these technologies. Ryan shares his unusual career journey, which started in finance and led to the founding of ForHumanity in March 2020. Initially focused on drafting audit rules for digital contact tracing during the pandemic, they have since developed more than 50 certification schemes and submitted them to governments and regulators for approval. We discuss:

• responsible AI development
• the need for independent audits promote compliance with emerging regulations
• the importance of AI literacy (and how it ought to be defined)
• why compliance is often cheaper than paying fines for non-compliance, yet many companies currently view fines as just a cost of doing business
• the marketing benefits of a “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval to verify compliance

We also veer into several other emerging technologies that are problematic from a societal/ethical standpoint, such as emotional recognition technology, those advancing "transhumanism," and gene editing. Also - ForHumanity just published 62 use cases for HR, designed to provide auditors with examples of best practices and compliant outputs. We discuss one such use case involving mental health chatbots - the potential for good as well as the considerable downside risk.

A truly fascinating conversation with a man - and organization - doing remarkable, vitally important, and largely unsung work.

Taylor Bradley is Head of Talent Strategy & Developer Success for Turing, builders of generative AI products and solutions that transform complex data into actionable insights. Taylor is an HR executive with over a decade of experience partnering with founders and executives to drive talent strategies in fast-growing, late-stage tech companies. Our wide-ranging conversation touches on:

• the unfair advantages of having two first names
• how his previous work as a paramedic informs his leadership style
• Turing’s “AI-powered Talent Cloud” and real world applications for HR
• how Turing scales AI-centric workforces (we discuss the flip-side: maintaining human-centricity)
• aligning HR practices with business goals in an AI-augmented world
• the major opportunities and challenges going forward

David Foote, of the eponymous Foote Partners, joins us for the second in a series of talks on The Big Shift-several tectonic changes sweeping through the workplace, driven by several key high-momentum technologies, including, of course, AI. In the first podcast we discussed the previous four industrial revolutions, going back to the first one in the 1700’s that was chiefly powered by the emergence of the efficient steam engine. On this pod, we examine the shifts in supply, demand and pay pay for tech skills. As with all the pods in the series, this should be particularly illuminating for the HR pros in our listening audience who want to get out in the front of the trends David and his team have identified that are shaping the future of work.

Yuval Harari’s brilliant new book, “Nexus, A Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI,” speaks about the importance of stories as the building blocks of culture. Geoffrey Klein is CEO and founder of nine dots, which helps businesses create compelling story-driven visual content. He is also an AI consultant, TEDx speaker, Wharton lecturer and best-selling author. He joins us to discuss the business case for spinning a ripping good yarn, how to become an adept storyteller, and why it’s particularly important in the age of AI. Bonus content: Geoffrey shares details of his triumphant appearance on the Dating Game, prompted by a question asked by AIX’s intrepid cohost, NetatWork's Harold Ford III.

Konnichiwa (こんにちは). Joining me from his HQ in Tokyo is my co-host, Michael Piker, VP, Global Total Rewards for Shiseido, the global beauty giant. Michael and I speak with NetExpat's founder and CEO Alain Verstandig and his colleague Laurette Bennhold-Samaan, Vice President, Global Advisory and Intercultural Services. Both are experts in Global Workforce Management Deployment, which is about establishing and deploying talent in the right location, in the right culture, and in the right context. The topics we discuss include:

• the challenges and benefits of international assignments and repatriation
• the importance of cultural agility in successfully navigating change, whether being assigned to an overseas location or moving from the main office to the home office
• how AI has improved their ability to accurately predict successful assignments/transitions
• the aspects of their work they would happily have AI do, and those that AI will never be able to replicate
• the importance of ensuring “human centricity” in an increasingly AI-augmented world

Tanoshinde ne (enjoy)!

Mark Vickers, HR.com’s Chief Research Analyst & Data Wrangler - aka, the Hardest Working Man in HR Research (TM) - joins us to talk about their new report, HR.com's State of People Analytics (https://tinyurl.com/ywbpmvv8). The report’s exec summary wastes no time laying it out: “HR has an ongoing analytics problem.” Two stats that bear this out: Only 22% of organizations feel effective in HR analytics; twice as many (44%) say their organizations are only somewhat effective or not effective at all in this area.

We discussed the decline in the use of people analytics and what’s behind it - spoiler alert: design, implementation, cultural resistance. Mark suggested strategies to reverse this trend, including starting small with meaningful metrics, leveraging existing technologies, training HR staff, and holding workshops on storytelling with data to effectively communicate insights to other parts of the organization. Naturally, we also discussed the implications this has for HR using AI to derive insights. An enlightening, free-wheeling conversation...check it out!

Today’s guest is uniquely qualified to answer the question: How can we ensure that AI doesn't leave a "body count" in its wake? Steve Levy is the principal talent advisor at DHI Group and an influential voice on all things TA (talent acquisition). By body count, we mean AI’s potential threat to jobs, social equity, and, gulp, humanity. We touch on:

• Steve’s 34-year stint saving lives (and we assume having some fun) as a Jones Beach lifeguard
• the AI “fear factor”
• the importance of maintaining AI-human balance
• the need for self-learning among recruiters
• ”radical transparency”... and my two favorite topics:
• “automating stupidity” (what you definitely do not want to do)
• “HR’s Ethan Allen syndrome” (you will LOL).

Bonus Content: generously waiving his standard Actor’s Equity rate, Steve did a dramatic reading of the famous courtroom scene from "Inherit the Wind" to emphasize the importance of critical thinking over blindly accepting dogma, and offered up a vaguely recognizable Tony Soprano applying for a sales job at a Jersey car dealership. As to the question of AI’s body count, Steve saves the two-word answer to the very end…the wait will seem brief, as we’re sure you’ll be riveted for the 60 minutes that precede it.

Excerpted from a conversation with Harold G. Ford III, the Practice Director for the Employer Solutions Practice at Net at Work. We discussed AI's transformative potential and the challenges of efficiently and responsibly integrating AI into the HR workflows of small and medium-sized businesses.