Good morning.
I was back in Atlanta yesterday at the Hope Global Forum, where I interviewed Mick Mulvaney, former chief of staff to President Donald Trump. Among other things, I asked him his view of corporations speaking out on social and political issues. His response:
“I advise corporations that if you are going to get involved in politics, you had better be good at it. You better be at least as good at politics as you are at your business. Because it's a nasty business.”
The bulk of our conversation focused on how to bridge the great chasms—political, social and economic—that now divide our society. He laid heavy blame on social media and cited section 230 of the 1996 communications act that frees social media platforms from the obligations of other publishers. He believes there is a good chance it will be repealed:
“There are very few groups that don’t have any friends in Washington these days. China is one, corporate America is another, and Big Tech is the third.”
In 1996, Congress was mainly interested in creating conditions that would allow new tech platforms to flourish and less worried about negative effects on society. Today, there is a more robust conversation about the social and ethical implications of emerging technologies. An example is a report out this morning from the folks at Deloitte, which asked nearly 2,000 technology leaders which new technologies had the most potential for creating social good, and they responded: cognitive technologies (A.I. and machine learning)—33%; digital reality (the metaverse)—14%; and autonomous vehicles—11%. Then the respondents were asked which technologies carried the greatest risk of social harm, and they answered: cognitive technologies—41%; digital reality—16%; and distributed ledger technology (crypto)—13%.
“Organizations developing and using emerging technologies now recognize both the potential for social harm and good,” Beena Ammanath, author of the report, told me. “However, we also found that the principles and frameworks to guide responsible and ethical decisions about how these nascent technologies are used are still lagging.” You can read the full report here.
Other news below. By the way, other CEOs attending John Hope Bryant’s Atlanta forum this year included Delta’s Ed Bastian, Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, Walmart’s Doug McMillon and PayPal’s Dan Schulman—a sign of their commitment to the forum’s goal of “empowering poor and underserved communities.”
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
