Talking Tethix Show: Introduction and Episode 01 Recap

The Tethix mission crew regularly have conversations on topics related to ethical and responsible tech. These are informal and just part of us continually learning together. Recently we decided, well, why don’t we just start recording them and continue our quest of learning in the open?

It was at this moment, with a virtual whiteboard open, the Talking Tethix Show was born.

The show is a conversational exploration of topics related to ethical and responsible tech between Alja and I (Mat). In further episodes we aim to have guests to bring additional perspective and insight as we learn through conversation.

In coming up with some topics to start from we landed on this idea that tech ethics is ‘more than just a role’ you hire for. This was partly inspired by a trend we’ve witnessed over the past few years where we’ve seen an increase in the number of roles being created in the field of responsible and ethical tech. These range from executive roles with titles like “Chief Trust and Safety Officer” to ones that are oriented towards policy, program and product management, data ethics or even inclusive design research.

Some of the main themes we covered in the first episode are:

1. Immaturity of the field
2. Lack of clear goals and metrics
3. Ethics is everyone’s job
4. The time and space for ethical practice
5. Changing processes and practising small
6. Playing it out before you live it out
7. Importance of psychological safety
8. Ethical intent to action gap
9. Phasing out, with patience
10. Ethical by default as an emerging trend

You can watch the full episode or shorter thematic Snacks on YouTube.