Developing responsible AI pathways
Alex Antic: I’d like to begin by learning a bit about you and your career trajectory. What made you pivot into human rights, and then ultimately into AI and ethics, and then become an academic in responsible tech?
Edward Santow: I specialized in human rights very early in my career as a lawyer. I’d always had this sense that I really wanted to help people if I can put it as vaguely as that, and that pathway toward human rights felt like a very natural one for me. In terms of the connection to technology, there were two crucial moments that took place two jobs ago.
I used to be the chief executive of an organization called the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC). PIAC exists to provide free legal advice and assistance to people who can’t afford lawyers. There was an enormous amount of work we did with Indigenous communities and others who had suffered very significant injustice. There were two specific cases that really...