CEO of Schibsted, Kristin Skogen Lund, is convinced the company benefits from people that dare ask questions, aren’t afraid to try a new approach, and can bring a new perspective to the table. She is passionate about the trainee program, and believes it gives Schibsted both an edge and an advantage in the market.

– The trainee program is and has been important to us. We see former trainees filling key roles – either within our organization or at other companies where they become enthusiastic ambassadors for Schibsted, she says.

Skogen Lund highlights curiosity and an open mind as key characteristics the Schibsted trainees should possess, and wants people to dare to raise their hand and voice their opinion. New perspectives and input are highly valued by Schibsted’s chief executive and is the reason that trainees are included in teams from the get go. – In my experience the trainees are highly competent people and they contribute throughout their traineeship. At Schibsted there are no desk exercises, and trainees are given responsibilities and proper tasks on real projects from day one.

Skogen Lund is convinced that this approach is key in giving the trainees a sense of achievement – and perhaps a stronger vision of the career path they want to take. – When you are given the opportunity to test different areas it can give you a better sense of what you enjoy doing, and what direction you would like to take. The trainees are stationed in four different parts of the Schibsted organization through their traineeship, which can be a great way to navigate their own path.

Schibsted seeks diversity and wants to be challenged

The CEO of Schibsted wants to give people room to grow and to voice their opinions – especially if they do not agree with the status quo. She feels this is one of the biggest differentiators Schibsted has to its competitors. – In the Schibsted culture we seek diversity, we seek counter-perceptions, we genuinely want to be sharpened and challenged. This means that there is room for many different personalities and some peculiarities as well.

Key to having a successful traineeship lies in not feeling you must meet a set of expectations, but rather shape those expectations yourself, Skogen Lund says. – I think each and every one of our trainees bring something unique to the table and that they should take ownership of and shape their role. I would rather have someone that breaks the boundaries of what is expected, then someone that is constantly afraid to not meet the expectations they think lies on them.

You would be forgiven for thinking that the CEO of a large company like Schibsted would look at the numbers first and foremost. Kristin Skogen Lund certainly expects everyone to help the company do well. But when it comes to developing new products she believes that there needs to be something more than a calculation involved.

– Much of what we do has an element of, if not art, then a flair. If you want to develop good products, you can’t solely use your calculator – you must have a sense of users and market, and have almost an artistic flair. To do this you must of course attract that kind of people, and then you have to give them free rein. I think Schibsted is good at that.

The value of a good mentor

The Schibsted Trainee Program offers a world class mentorship for its participants. The value of someone to push you forward and help you gain the courage to speak up, is perhaps the most important tool a trainee can have, says Skogen Lund.

– Throughout my career I have had people who have meant a lot to me, and I have been fortunate to have had bosses who gave me the confidence to move forward. It is important to have what I call “yes you can” people surrounding you, who make you try when you may not have the courage to do it yourself. The Schibsted Trainee Program offers that type of support to our trainees, and is in my opinion a reason to apply on its own, she concludes.

Read more about the trainee program here

The latest UN climate report was an eye-opener. We no longer have time to wait and see; we need to act now. In Schibsted, we know that our services and operations have an important societal and environmental impact, and therefore we strive to consider and manage our impact in all our business decisions and, through our services, empower people to make sustainable choices. 

In the front seat of our amazing sustainability team is our Head of Sustainability, Britt Nilsen. We had a chat with her to learn more about how we at Schibsted are working with sustainability and get her best advice on how to become more sustainable in our everyday lives. 

What are we doing to empower our users and our employees to contribute to a sustainable society?

The great thing about Schibsted is that our most significant impact on society and the environment comes through the use of our services. It’s about how we empower users in their daily lives through quality journalism that secures democracy and ensures that we have societies based on truth, trust, and transparency. It’s about how our marketplaces facilitate second-hand trade and make our users environmental heroes, and it’s through our financial services and growth companies that empower our customers and users to make informed choices.

How do we make sure that we grow Schibsted as a business in a sustainable way going forward?

The way we are doing it is by integrating sustainability into our strategy. We don’t have a separate sustainability strategy in Schibsted. We have one strategy, and that needs to be sustainable. We have set out ambitious goals and targets that our Executive Management team is responsible for delivering on, and they are followed up in progress reviews. And of course, you can read all about this in our yearly sustainability report. 

Recently, PwC published that Schibsted is one of four listed companies in Norway (out of 100) that actually is reducing CO2e emissions according to the Paris Agreement. And this is one of the mentioned goals we have. 

What is your best advice to become more sustainable in our everyday life?

One of the biggest problems in the world today is increased consumption. The best way for us all to contribute is to change to a circular way of consuming. We need to stop buying new things and start buying and selling used things instead. And why not use our marketplaces for that?

Over the past 20 years the world has been digitized, a process in which Schibsted has been in the front seat and will continue to be. Now it is time to use this expertise to create sustainable solutions. If you would like to join us and contribute to making a change, take a look at our career page here. 

 

The differences between individuals are what make us all unique, and we know for a fact that we need diversity in order to succeed. We have spoken to some of our Tech and Data leaders to get their reflections on diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

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A new perspective to Diversity- `Creative Friction´

“Life in business is about solving problems and fleshing out strategies in an increasingly complex world. The best solutions are found through what I call “creative friction”; different viewpoints that are lifting awareness and understanding to a new level in a team.

Both educational background, ethnicity, gender and other diversity categories are essential for creating creative friction in a group and a company. Without it we will not be able to solve the most complex tasks.

We need different lenses. We need diversity.”  

Sven Størmer Thaulow, Chief Data & Technology Officer 

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A sense of belonging is the heartbeat of Inclusion and Diversity

“ I truly believe that our work has to be internal first, to impact what we do externally. We can deliver better to our users and customers when we have different backgrounds and experiences, as we also then have different perspectives on a problem and can solve it in new ways.

And not least, to thrive and deliver, Schibsted employees need to feel like they belong in Schibsted. I think we are only able to create the feeling of belonging, if people feel reflected and included at work. In my opinion it is key that we have different people represented at all levels in the organisation.”

Ingvild Næss, Chief Privacy and Data Trends Officer 

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The diversity of mindsets in the teams is crucial for success

“We need diversity to reach a diverse market . Hence we want to have teams which are diverse not only in terms of gender, ethnicity, age, etc but also diverse in terms of their mindsets and areas of interests. And if we can do that we can actually leverage the true power of a diverse workforce.

Belonging can only be truly achieved when the employees feel that their opinions and ideas are equally valued and that they matter to the team in every possible way. Hence, a truly strong team is a team that has the diversity of both people skills and technical skills.”

Ralph Benton, Chief Information Security Officer 

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Diversity is not something we do in addition to our business – diversity is our business.

“How do we know to create a news product that allows easy navigation and text-to-speech for those with imperfect sight, or difficulties reading? Who will remind us to make information on Covid-19 available in multiple languages because not everyone who lives in a country speaks the same language? Having the understanding and experience to truly empower people in their daily lives requires a wide diversity of people in Schibsted teams.

Let’s celebrate our people, and our diversity. Let’s increase our diversity in every dimension, and listen and learn from those that are different from us. Diversity is not something we do in addition to our business – diversity is our business.”

Gareth Eason, Chief Information Officer 

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I still need to do more to think about and promote Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

“I have a rather selfish view of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging. As a leader, I want my organisation (and consequently me) to be as successful as possible. However, overtime, despite what my Mum says, I have come to realise that I’m not perfect. I have multiple gaps. Some that I work on and many that I know I need others to fill in order to be successful.

When I think about those gaps, yes, I think about hard skills, but I’m increasingly thinking about what life experience someone can bring to my team, a project, or simply a discussion. What perspective can they offer that I am missing to make me and the outcomes for Schibsted better? What background do they have that can augment mine? Notice all the me, mine and I there – I said it was selfish.

Of course, I still need to do more to think about and promote Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, however shining the light on my gaps seems like a reasonable starting point – even I say so myself!”

Ben Graham, Chief Product Officer 

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Inclusion and belonging should come without saying

“Inclusion and belonging should come without saying, and it is almost strange for me that we need to have an agenda for it – because to me it is such an obvious and natural thing. NO question marks. If we think about it, it is impossible to create togetherness, team-spirit or drive towards common goals if people don’t feel that they belong or even worse, see themselves as outsiders.

However, the diversity part is more complex, and something I believe all of us need to be reminded to work on. I actually see diversity as a tool to help us solve problems. We want all the best tools in our tool box, and hence we should optimize our possibilities by looking for talent with different backgrounds, mindsets and personalities.”

Karine Mortvedt Mørland, Finance Director Product & Technology 

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Diversity in a company is not only natural, it is also smart

“The world has become smaller. Advances in technology and transportation have led to increased globalisation and truly transformed society – something I took advantage of myself when I went abroad to study Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts ages ago. It is only natural that this also has influenced diversity in the workplace here in the Nordics. Diversity in a company is not only natural, it is also smart. Recent studies show that the most diverse companies are more likely to outperform less diverse peers on profitability. 

Having diversity in the company and succeeding with diversity are two different things. For people to perform at their best, they need to feel included – and that means, among other things, having equal opportunities. For me, diversity and equality starts with an awareness of your unconscious biases. If you haven’t tested yourself already, you should check out “Project Implicit“.

Awareness and knowing what your unconscious biases are, makes it possible to do something about it. For example, when making decisions, I sometimes write down my arguments (pros & cons) to force my brain into a conscious mode, instead of taking actions on autopilot.

So what should we do in Schibsted on Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging? I believe in being data-driven. Luckily, ACT is providing us with data we can use as a foundation for conversations in teams on all levels of the organisation. Here we can identify improvement areas and take small steps towards an even more inclusive workplace. So, please continue to respond to the survey and let the data flow…”

Lars Westvang, Chief Enterprise Architect 

Svenska Dagbladet’s photographer Staffan Löwstedt took the picture of the year in Sweden 2020. Several of his colleagues in SvD and Aftonbladet were also awarded in the prestigious competition ”Årets bild 2021”.

”The picture of the year 2020 is like a scene from a science fiction movie with scenes we never saw before they became every day-experiences. Healthcare personnel covered in suits to protect them from a virus that paralyzed the world.”

That’s the Årets Bild jury motivation. The photographer behind the winning picture is Staffan Löwsted who has worked at Svenska Dagbladet for many years.

The picture was part of a story about how very sick Covid patients get intensive care on their way to the hospital, in the air and on the motor roads. It shows a patient arriving at Södersjukhuset in Stockholm.

”The picture mirrors the pandemic and the dystopia at the same time. I like the distance in it, but also the care the man with the bag containing the patient’s personal belongings is showing. And the fact that in the background there is a whole ”healthcare factory” ready to take over. It says something about the Corona year”, says Staffan Löwstedt.

The Corona pandemic has affected most of the work for Staffan and his colleagues the last year. For almost a month during spring 2020 he was present, day and night, at the Covid intensive care at Södertälje hospital, south of Stockholm. An assignment that was especially important and emotional since he and everyone at SvD lost a dear colleague who died in Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic.

”I have taken pictures and cried while doing so. At times I have slept badly and I have had to work on my experiences, but I have tried just to do my job – to capture what is happening as truthfully as possible, Staffan says in this article in SvD, about the award.

Staffan Löwstedt wasn’t the only Schibsted photographer to be awarded. His SvD-colleague Magnus Hjalmarson Neideman got third prize in the category domestic news story. Andreas Bardell at Aftonbladet won the portrait category for a story showing how the covid-masks put marks on the faces of the health care personell.
Pontus Orre, also from Aftonbladet won the sports category with a picture of a curious spectator trying to get a glimpse of Armand Duplantis jumping.
Three more photographers at Aftonbladet were awarded:
• Portrait, second prize: Magnus Wennman
• International News story, third prize: Peter Wixtröm
• International news photo, third prize: Pontus Höök
You can see all the winners at the Årets bild exhibition at Galleri Kontrast in Stockholm until April 25.

In this story in Schibsted Future Report 2021 you can read more about photographers in the Corna front line, and see more great pictures from Schibsted photographers.

One of Andreas Bardell’s the portraits showing how the covid-masks put marks on the faces of the health care personell.

Pontus Orre’s photo that won the sports category.

Kids Coding Camp is open to all kids between 9 -11 years old. This year our camp is all digital, it consists of two learning sessions during the spring term.

Please note that it is held in Swedish, with some Norwegian translations. It’s free of cost.

The registration is closed for now, but stay tuned; we will update the information regarding the next Kids Coding Camp in the fall.

Here is how it works: During two evening sessions the participants will take their first steps towards learning programming. Via a youtube stream, the children will be coding in Scratch together with experienced teachers from Kodcentrum. The sessions are open for beginners and for children with some knowledge of Scratch. The focus is to learn basic skills in coding. 

Before the training:

• The children need access to a computer connected to the internet
• The children are advised to create an account in Scratch beforehand
• A link to the event is sent out via email a few days before

During the training

• Experienced teachers from Kodcentrum are leading the sessions.
• The classes are divided into different themes – in the first part, we focus on the game we are going to code. In the next part, we do the coding. The kids have direct contact with the leaders through a chat.

When working with Kids Coding Camp we are cooperating with Kodcentrum in Sweden and Lær Kidsa Koding in Norway – non profit- organizations offering free introduction to programming to children.

Learn why our Chief Data & Technology Officer, Sven Størmer Thaulow, believes it is important to learn technology at a young age

It all started in June 2019 when kids aged 8-12 years invaded our offices in Oslo and Stockholm, spending a week with us to learn how to code and use coding to solve challenges. This was just the first step on an exciting journey – where our last initiative was a fully digital camp in February 2021, engaging 500 kids in the Nordics. We are continuing this success in 2022 with two upcoming digital camps – sign up here!

All in all we have now arranged six camps, training some 700 kids.

I couldn’t imagine that this was going to be such a success when we started this initiative. We really believe we can make a difference for the future”, says project lead Sofia Friberg

She is proud to facilitate an important Schibsted’s initiative: Making sure the next generation is even more tech-savvy and able to navigate through and benefit from new technology than their parents.

Rethinking tech through the kids

In Schibsted, tech is an integrated part of all we do – offering unexpected opportunities. We believe that one way for us all to gain from these possibilities, is to teach kids to master the basics of tech, as well as encourage them to dream big.

Through Kids Coding Camp, Schibsted wants to engage and inspire kids and youths to envision that they can affect the future and that technology can be a tool to find solutions we need when they grow older. And not least, we want to give hope and confidence, in a world with lots of challenges and where kids worry about the future. To address this we also dedicate time to discuss how innovation and tech can help out when it comes to environmental issues.

One of the great things about coding is that it gives the same opportunities to all regardless of gender, social background or other prerequisites. By arranging Kids Coding Camp, Schibsted also wants to lift the importance of equalizing differences and giving people the same opportunities to educate themselves, grow and flourish.

”The “secret code” to securing the best tech-heads for our future is to make sure kids are not held back because of circumstances beyond their control. We want to empower these kids and It’s a human right to have equal opportunities”, says Britt Nilsen, Head of Sustainability at Schibsted.

Kids Coding Camp is a cooperation between Schibsted, Kodcentrum in Sweden and Lær Kidsa Koding in Norway.

Nu öppnar Schibsted och Kodcentrum dörrarna till ett digitalt Kids Coding Camp där alla barn i åldrarna 9-12 år är välkomna att anmäla sig. Campet är uppdelat på tre gemensamma tillfällen under vårterminen och tillsammans kommer vi att ha en lärorik och energifylld vårtermin.

Anmäl dig här!

Så här ser eventet ut

Under tre onsdagar, 10/2, 24/3 och 28/4, kommer vi tillsammans att ta våra första steg i programmering. Via en live youtube-länk kommer barnen att koda i programmet Scratch tillsammans med programmerare från Kodcentrum. Barnen kommer även att få träffa programmerare från Schibsted som berättar varför det är så kul att jobba med teknik. Utbildningen är på Svenska men samtliga som har anmält sig kan delta, oavsett vilket land du bor i.

Före utbildningen

• Barnen behöver ha tillgång till en dator med internet.
• Länk till live eventet kommer att skickas ut på mail en vecka innan start.
• Barnen får gärna bjuda med sig en kompis att koda tillsammans med framför samma skärm.
• Om du gör en sen anmälan bör ditt barn se tidigare inspelade lektioner – vi skickar dom till dig när du gjort anmälan.

Under utbildningen

• Lektionerna leds av erfarna pedagoger från Kodcentrum.
• Lektionerna är uppdelade – under första delen är det fokus på att gå igenom det spel som vi ska koda, under andra delen kodar vi. Barnen kommer ha direkt kontakt med pedagogerna via en chatt.

Schibsted samarbetar med Kodcentrum i Sverige och Lær Kidsa Koding i Norge. Tillsammans jobbar vi för att fler barn ska ha möjlighet att lära sig framtidens språk.

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Vanliga frågor

Vad binder jag upp mig till när jag anmäler mitt barn?
Anmälan gäller för samtliga tre tillfällen under vårterminen, följande datum och tider gäller:

• 10 februari 17:30 – 19:00
• 24 mars 17:30 – 19:00
• 28 april 17:30 – 19:00

För att ditt barn ska följa med i utvecklingen är det viktigt att hen är med på samtliga lektioner. Efter varje camp kommer vi att skicka ut en inspelning av lektionen så att de som inte kunde vara med live kan göra uppgifterna vid ett annat tillfälle. Det går inte att anmäla sig till enskilda lektioner.

Behöver mitt barn ha tidigare kunskaper i programmering eller Scratch?
Nej, kursen riktar sig mot nybörjare eller de barn som har lite kunskap i Scratch. Även barn med mycket kunskaper i Scratch är såklart välkomna att delta men fokuset ligger på att lära sig grunderna.

Vad händer om vi missar första tillfället?
Efter varje camp kommer vi att skicka ut en inspelning av lektionen så att de som inte kunde vara med live kan göra uppgifterna vid ett annat tillfälle. Vi uppmuntrar dock barn som inte deltagit vid första tillfället att logga in och prova på Scratch innan andra tillfället startar. Information om hur ni skapar ett gratiskonto i Scratch kommer att skickas ut i god tid innan första lektionen.

Kostar det något att anmäla sig?
Nej, det är helt kostnadsfritt. Vi vill att alla barn ska ha möjlighet att lära sig framtidens språk.

Mitt barn pratar norska, kan hen vara med ändå?
Självklart! Utbildningen är på svenska men så länge ditt barn förstår svenska går det utmärkt. Alla som vill är välkomna att vara med.

Hur avregistrerar man sig?
På mail senast en vecka innan första campet: kidscodingcamp@schibsted.com

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Kids Coding Camp är ett koncept som är utvecklat av Schibsted. Första evenemanget slog upp dörrarna sommaren 2019 och sedan dess har vi inspirerat och utbildat ca 150  barn i Sverige och Norge. Syftet är att fler barn och unga ska ha möjlighet att lära framtidens språk; programmering och kod.

Schibsted har byggts på entreprenörskap och innovation redan från starten 1839 och teknologi och digital utveckling är en av grundstenarna i vår verksamhet – liksom i samhället i stort. Därför är det ett naturligt steg för oss att tillgängliggöra programmering och kod för fler barn och unga. Programmering och kod är ett världsomspännande språk som förenar, förändrar och utvecklar människor och vår relation till teknologi.

In this blog post we discuss implications related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) by exploring possible areas of concern. The insights we present are sprung from two different data collection methods: assessments of academic and policy reports on potential ethical implications related to AI usage in digital media and consumer brands, and internal studies where these were discussed with Schibsted employees. 

Going into the woods

Imagine that you are on a wooden path in the dark. The only thing you know about the path is that there is a big rock somewhere ahead of you. You know this because a friend of yours tripped over the rock and broke a leg on this very path a while back. While not happy about the broken leg, your friend said the views on the other side of the rock are absolutely stunning and urges you to try to get past the rock to enjoy them yourself. 

You have a few options when deciding what to do next. You could continue walking straight ahead, as if you do not know about the rock. You could turn around, and walk away from the rock (and the view). You could dig the rock up and remove it, or you could attempt climbing the rock. 

Walking straight ahead seems risky. Learning from your friend’s example, you could very well break your leg. Turning around would yield low returns. You won’t get to enjoy the view on the other side, and you won’t learn how to cope the next time there is a big rock in front of you. Digging up the rock would be time consuming, and also, where would you move the rock to without it getting in harm’s way for someone else? The option you are left with is finding a safe way to climb the rock.

In this post, we are approaching Artificial Intelligence (AI) as our metaphorical rock. Improvements in AI technology over the past decades have gone more rapidly than ever before, and today AI is virtually ubiquitous in our everyday lives. As a company serving millions of people in the Nordics with everyday digital services – now partially powered by AI – we see a need for introspection regarding the implications of our developments. 

Since 1839, Schibsted has been working to empower people in their daily lives. 181 years ago this was all about publishing newspapers. Today, what our empowerment looks like has evolved to include helping people shop second hand, finding the best deals, and much more – often through employing new technology. We are currently working with AI in many different ways, from recommending relevant ads to users to helping human moderators review explicit content or predicting how many newspapers we should print to minimize our environmental footprint. Our use cases are many and diverse, and their impact can be seen in user facing as well as internal applications. 

As a group with a strong tradition of transforming ourselves and our products through digital developments we are truly excited by all the potential that AI technologies offer us. At the same time, we consider the potential negative implications these technologies may bring with them. We believe ourselves to have a responsibility to consider and manage these. Or, using our metaphor, we are dedicated to finding a safe way to scale rocks related to AI as we believe there are amazing views to be enjoyed on the other side.

Getting to know our rocks

After reviewing publications on the theme of the ethical and societal implications of AI systems from leading international research and policy institutions we decided to more closely explore four themes which may relate to Schibted’s areas of operations. In the following section we will use illustrative examples to highlight how each of these themes could potentially play out through examples that relate to our industries. Neither the themes or examples are to be considered exhaustive.

Let’s explore the rocks!

1) Traceability & Interpretability

AI systems have been used to allocate police resources, help judges decide if people should be released on bail, and allocate hours of assistance to the disabled. When AI systems are employed to make influential and complicated decisions, it is important that we scrutinise how they are reached. But can we do that?

Even if we have agency over what data and instructions we give an AI system, it is often hard to know how they reached a given conclusion. The lack of transparency in AI systems’ rationale is the source of many social and ethical concerns, and the technical challenge of the “black box” of AI is especially problematic when there are high stakes involved. Although we might not understand the exact goings-on of AI systems, one might imagine that a second-best option would be AI systems explaining themselves in an understandable way. Unfortunately, AI systems are often unable to explain their rationale to humans in a way that they can understand, leading to decisions reached through them unable to be appealed or scrutinised. 

Illustrative example: Anna works at a publishing company and is in charge of an AI system that produces news stories. One day the AI system produces a factually incorrect news story, and in order to make sure it does not happen again in the future Anna wants to find out where it went wrong. Yet, as the program cannot explain itself to her in a way she understands, she cannot identify nor correct the AI system.

If we are unable to account for how AI systems reach their conclusion, we have limited opportunities to apply systems of accountability. This is an issue both from an abstract ethical perspective (why have morality if people cannot be held morally responsible?), but also from a legal standpoint. 

Illustrative example: Anna’s news-producing AI made another mistake, but this time it was not spotted before publication. The story’s false information causes mass panic and disorder. Who is responsible for causing it? Is it the publishing company? The people who developed the AI system? Is it Anna? Without knowing where in the system the mistake lies, we have limited ways of finding out who is to be held accountable for it. 

2) Reliability

In the context of AI, we need to distinguish between information and knowledge. While we can often get completely reliable information from AI systems, it gets more challenging once you ask it to take that information and make inferences about it (give us knowledge). Still, we see a growing number of use cases where AI systems’ influence reaches beyond providing information, and the following two points are variants on AI systems producing unreliable knowledge.

Illustrative example: AI might be able to tell us that X number of applicants for a job have gone to university, but it will struggle to reliably determine which of those applicants is well suited or qualified for the role in question.

AI which aims to produce actionable insights often tries to establish correlations within a data set. If the correlation is found by an AI in a sufficiently large amount of data, establishing causation is not seen as necessary for insights to be acted on. Yet, AI systems routinely come with biased correlations, or mix up correlation and causation all together. Ethically, this is problematic because it can lead to biased or unfair outcomes. 

Illustrative example: An online marketplace has devised a program where people who are viewed as “most qualified” automatically get shortlisted for job interviews. The sorting process to find the “most qualified” applicants is done by the algorithm sorting through people’s resumes. After having looked at the resumes of historically successful candidates, the system makes an inference that being male is correlated with being qualified. As a result of this, the AI removes all female applicants from the pool of possible applicants. When the creators of the algorithm try to modify this by not giving the algorithm applicants’ gender, the AI still manages to detect it through things such as women having been captains on female-only lacrosse teams.

3) Curation

In modern information societies, AI systems often filter information. Although this is not inherently a negative thing, it can be problematic if it is done in such a way as to filter away information which people would nonetheless benefit from seeing.  

Illustrative example: A news site has a personalisation algorithm which promotes only the most popular stories for users. A serious human rights violation is happening, but because the algorithm does not deem this story as sufficiently popular, it is not read by many people and the violation goes largely unnoticed by readers of the newspaper. 

A prevalent concern is that AI systems will curate information to an extent where it will significantly influence and change our view of the world. Any type of curation of information can influence our views of the world and society, and with AI the scale of potential impact is growing.

Illustrative example: Lars regularly reads The Newspaper which offers a personalised news feed. A match of his demographics, set preferences, and browning history renders him an AI-enabled front page that offers a view of the world setting him on a trajectory for radicalisation and contributes to him committing acts of violence.

4) Marginalisation

To a large extent, AI systems excel by seeing patterns. This is a useful tool, yet the dark side of seeing patterns is that it risks entrenching biases and further disadvantaging those who are already systematically discriminated against.

The notion of AI systems can automate simple tasks which have previously been done by people may lead to greater efficiency, but it also opens up for the effects of the potential inherent bias in the data or system employed to be increasingly widespread. 

Illustrative example: A financial company has employed AI for the process of evaluating loan applications. Explicitly programmed or not, the system is routinely refusing loans to people who live in a specific neighborhood. As the AI is processing all applications, the bias is present across the board – rendering the neighborhood poorly equipped to practice socio-economic mobility. 

Pattern recognition can also lead to unintentionally offending people and make them feel that their communities are not welcomed. When creating products and services which are widely used, it is important to treat all groups with equal respect. Acting or appearing transphobic, ableist, sexist or racist – even unintentionally – is not acceptable.

Time to get the right shoes 

To be vigilant in facing the future, we need to respect the fact that we are going to be needing tools in order to scale these rocks. What shoes might we require, what rope do we need, and which is the best flashlight? 

As a first step, we turned inwards to assess our current equipment. 

We conducted internal studies exploring these themes as relating to Schibsted. In 2019, in-depth interviews were conducted with employees across our organisation, including members of our various technology teams and top management. In 2020, we followed up this qualitative work with a survey asking employees about their opinions on the potential and implications of AI at Schibsted, both in the present and the future. 

We were explicit in our choice to pair our inquiries about potential and possible negative societal/ethical implications, and this yielded some important insights for us. What became clear through our internal studies was that we see exciting opportunities and emerging ethical implications stemming from tightly related domains. For example, we see great potential in using AI to create relevant and engaging user experiences, yet at the same time consider the significating down sides of an all too personalised information society. 

What we learned through our studies was that Schibsted practitioners see little risk with our current AI applications. For example, one of the biggest theoretical concerns lies within the field of curation and personalization. In practice, Schibsted is developing various editorial tools aimed at safeguarding editorial integrity and contributing to an informed society. While the theoretical risk still remains, as an organization we are putting in practical guards against it. 

What did become clear through our studies is that our practitioners want to put more focus on risk management and mitigation going forward. As AI becomes  increasingly advanced, our practitioners are more concerned about the scale of their potential negative implications. In order to reap the benefits we have identified (our magnificent view, if you would), our findings show motivation to safely scale the rocks we see lying in the path towards it. This is a big task.  Consensus on what is harmful or unwanted is relatively simple (few people want marginalisation or decisions no one can account for). Consensus on what is ethical or desirable, though, is harder. 

We have work ahead of us in terms of systematically approaching the possible implications discussed in this post. As a starting point, we aim to keep doing the following as an organisation:

• Foster diverse teams. We strive to create (tech) teams that challenge and complement each others’ ways of thinking.
• Discuss our systems and datasets. Is the employed dataset representative of those intended to serve? What goals are the systems optimized for? We need to continuously reflect on and discuss our efforts. 
• Iterate. We embrace iteration and welcome improvements.  

When the car was made available to the public, opportunities and challenges came along with it. These were managed through assigning responsibilities on both those building and driving  cars (regulations, industry standards, drivers license etc.) to create safe streets. While the implications of harmful AI systems aren’t always as definite as, say, the results of a car crash, we believe ourselves and our industry peers to have a big job in front of us to safeguard our digital streets.

AI is a technology with enormous potential, for good and ill. We believe that Integrating responsible AI into our practices does not mean immediately abandoning projects which could have negative consequences, but rather push ourselves to find the necessary tools to safely move forward. 

/Agnes Stenbom, Responsible Data & AI Specialist, Schibsted / Industial PhD Candidate, KTH
& Sidsel Håbjørg Størmer, Philosophy Student, University of Cambridge

Staff from diverse domains of knowledge and practice were involved in this analysis, including but not limited to the fields of philosophy, law, management, and technology. We believe that interdisciplinary teams are essential to understand – and act upon – the opportunities and challenges ahead.

 

References 

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Watch the webinar presented by Schibsted & Women in Tech, in Sweden.