But Who Gets a Seat at the Table?

I’m not anti-AI.

In fact, I believe artificial intelligence has the potential to become one of the most powerful tools of our generation. I use AI in my own work, and I see tremendous opportunities for it to help organizations become more efficient, entrepreneurs become more competitive, and everyday people gain access to information and resources that once seemed out of reach.

But believing in AI does not mean believing AI should have free rein over our lives.

There has to be an ethical approach to artificial intelligence.

I have already started developing an ethical AI framework for my own work because I believe leadership requires us to think about more than what technology can do. We also have to ask what it should do—and where the boundaries should be.

The challenge is that AI is moving incredibly fast.

Technology is advancing faster than many organizations can write policies, faster than governments traditionally pass laws, and certainly faster than society can fully understand all of the consequences.

And here is something else we have to acknowledge:

We cannot simply expect everyone to self-regulate.

When there is money to be made, markets to capture, data to collect, and competition to beat, ethics can quickly become secondary unless we intentionally build protections into the system.

So yes, I believe there should be regulation.

But my bigger question is:

Who gets to write the rules?

It cannot only be the technology community.

And it definitely cannot only be government.

If AI is eventually going to affect nearly every part of society, then the people helping establish its ethical boundaries should reflect the society that will actually have to live with those decisions.

That means technology experts and policymakers should be at the table—but so should educators, parents, young people, small-business owners, nonprofit leaders, workers, civil-rights advocates, faith leaders, healthcare professionals, people with disabilities, formerly incarcerated people, community organizations, researchers, ethicists, and everyday citizens.

Yes, even the stay-at-home mom.

Yes, the mom-and-pop business owner.

Yes, the person who doesn’t understand how an algorithm works but absolutely understands how a decision made by an algorithm could affect their family, employment, finances, privacy, education, or future.

Expertise should inform the conversation, but lived experience must also help shape it.

Because the people most affected by technology are not always the people invited into the rooms where technology policy is created.

We have seen what happens throughout history when major systems are designed first and communities are consulted later.

AI gives us an opportunity to do something differently.

I don’t want to stop innovation.

I want responsible innovation.

I don’t want fear to determine the future of AI.

But I don’t want profit, political power, or technological capability to determine it alone either.

The conversation should not simply be:

“How far can AI go?”

We should also be asking:

“How far should AI go?”

And perhaps the most important question of all:

“Who gets a seat at the table when we decide?”

If AI is going to help shape humanity’s future, humanity deserves representation in the room.

Yusef-Andre Wiley