MIT Sloan Management Review and BCG have assembled an international panel of AI experts that includes academics and practitioners to help us gain insights into how responsible artificial intelligence (RAI) is being implemented in organizations worldwide. This month's question for our panelists: Should RAI be a top management agenda item at organizations across industries and geographies?1 Eighty-six percent of them (18 out of 21) agree or strongly agree that it should be. In aggregate, their replies offer a compelling rationale for top management to oversee RAI efforts. We distill and explain this rationale below. We also conducted a global survey of more than 1,000 executives that generated similar findings: Eighty-two percent of managers in companies with at least $100 million in annual revenues agree or strongly agree that RAI should be part of their company's top management agenda.

On March 7th, the Center for Responsible Business and the Human Rights Center, in collaboration with Microsoft, hosted the third annual conference on Business, Technology, and Human Rights. The event gathered technologists and practitioners across industry, nonprofit, and academia, as well as students around the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Social Impact. As student advisory board members at the Center for Responsible Business, we want to be part of the movement to move business to the forefront of social and environmental impact. Attending this conference and meeting some of the leading practitioners in the field of AI gave us the chance to understand how we can ensure this burgeoning technology can help achieve that goal. AI can serve humanity and promote positive social, environmental, and economic outcomes through a focus on human-centered, inclusive AI design. This means adopting a more conscientious design of AI algorithms and tools that puts the full diversity of human needs and consequences at the center.

Last summer I wrote about Forum for the Future's report "Future of Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace." The topic of the Future of Work is getting a lot of coverage. My interest lies in how the Future of Work applies to sustainability. In March, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business' Center for Responsible Business will hold a "Future of Work" conference lead by Faris Natour, principal and co-founder of Article One Advisors and leader of the Center's Human Rights and Business Initiative. I spoke with him about how sustainability practitioners can create strategies and partnerships that minimize the risks and maximize the positive impacts of these changes.