The impact of AI on governance
The potential reach of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is pervasive. The future impacts on the economy and society will be significant and disruptive. Governments, businesses, investors and research institutes around the world are applying ever-greater time and effort into developing and deploying the next generation of AI systems and considering the implications for policy and regulation.
How as directors should we be preparing for this AI-driven change? The social impact, governance in the technology ecosystem, and ethical implementations of these AI technologies and practices all require consideration around the board table. Join us on 23 July where Dr Shaun Ryan will share his experiences on the impact of AI on governance, followed by a Q&A session with panellists Ben Reid, Executive Director of AI Forum NZ, and Olivia Erdelyi, Canterbury University School of Law lecturer specialising in AI and law.
Dr Shaun Ryan is an e-commerce visionary. For more than 15 years, he has led the development of innovative solutions to significantly improve site search for online retailers. Ask him how site search became his life’s work, and he will tell you a story about his brother Grant and a Sunday hangover. Grant, Shaun says, had the original idea of improving search results based on relevance. As a result, GlobalBrain was born in 1998 and purchased by NBCi in 2000. In 2001, Shaun and his fellow founders bought back the patented technology and formed SLI Systems. In 2013, SLI Systems (SLI.NZ) launched its IPO on the New Zealand Exchange. Today, SLI is the most chosen SaaS-based site search solution for U.S. Internet Retailers Top 1,000 companies.
Shaun is also Chair of Archipro and a director of Epic and Redseed. In 2014 he was awarded the New Zealand Engineer Entrepreneur of the Year. Shaun has a background in software development and a doctorate in artificial intelligence from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He is a Member of the Institute of Directors.
Ben Reid has nearly 25 years’ professional experience in technology and innovation, with a deep technical background in software development and architecture. In 2008 Ben founded advisory firm Memia Ltd, through which he works with diverse organisations spanning multinational technology companies, government agencies and start-ups, bringing technology capability at governance level and helping senior leaders approach strategic technology decisions.
Ben is active in promoting innovation and collaboration across the New Zealand tech industry and public sector. He is currently the Executive Director of the Artificial Intelligence Forum of New Zealand, an independent, cross-sector association established to grow AI capabilities in New Zealand and seize the opportunities from AI for our economy and society.
He is the former Chairman of Canterbury Tech and was also the Establishment Chairman of Canterbury Angel Investors Inc., the regional early stage investors group. Ben is a member of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand.
Olivia Erdelyi is a lecturer at University of Canterbury, School of Law and Member of the Artificial Intelligence Forum of New Zealand’s Working Group on AI, Labour, and Economy. Benefiting from a multidisciplinary background in artificial intelligence, economics, law, and political science, she is specialised in international financial regulation and AI & law.
Her AI & law research line focuses on the daunting challenge of developing sustainable and consistent international AI regulatory and governance policies in collaboration with various international stakeholders from academia, industry, and government. She has been participating in interdisciplinary research projects and publishing in leading AI venues on topics ranging from fundamental theoretic AI research with a predominantly computer scientific focus to more applied issues revolving around the nowadays increasingly central question of how society should deal with the emergence of ever more pervasive AI technologies.
Prior to this role, she worked with several international law firms and European Institutions, such as the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Commission, in the areas of corporate law and international financial regulation. As part of the worldwide efforts to revise financial stability frameworks in the aftermath of the latest global financial crisis, she contributed to European financial services and corporate group law policies.