Ethics, Technology, and Public Policy for Practitioners - Course Offering
Applications are now closed for the Fall 2024 cohort.
Our live, cohort-based program gathers practitioners from across the tech sector, civil society, and public agencies whose work directly shapes both technology and the decisions and values - implicit and explicit - that guide it. Participants in this 7-week, live digital program convene on Zoom to connect with one another in shared examination of the process, practices, and direction of their and our shared work in technology, engaging in readings and content that challenge our preconceived notions; diving deep into cutting edge topics at the intersection of ethics, technology, and public policy; engaging directly with distinguished guest speakers at the forefront of the field; and innovating new ways of discussing these issues in cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral teams.
In fall 2023, Stanford Continuing Professional Development hosted the program, which offered a record of completion for participants who completed the class. We are excited to announce that the course will be offered again this fall 2024. The Fall cohort will run for seven weeks and the live course take place on Wednesdays, from October 2- November 13, from 5-7 p.m. Pacific Time. We will be offering both a live and asynchronous option. Applications are now closed for the Fall 2024 cohort.
For questions about the course, contact ethicsandtech_practitioners [at] stanford.edu (ethicsandtech_practitioners[at]stanford[dot]edu).
About the Course
Get access to the 2023 Course Syllabus.
Why: The leading edge of technical innovation is full of opportunities and risks. This course will engage professionals who are thinking through how best to use their power and influence responsibly as the technology industry navigates a period of economic upheaval, new breakthroughs in generative AI, continuing dilemmas around misinformation and digital media, and a continued snail’s pace in U.S. regulatory efforts.
What: Over the course of seven weeks, participants will study with a curated group of technologists, policymakers, and civil society leaders in conversation around ethics, public policy, and technological change. Practitioners will also engage with and hear from distinguished faculty contributors and speakers and leaders at the forefront of Tech, AI, and Ethics practice. Instead of passively accepting the view that what others do with new technologies is beyond our ability to control, this cohort challenges its members to harness the power of this interdisciplinary network to confront today’s ethical and policy dilemmas with capability and responsibility, and to confidently design new responses to the types of challenges teams and leaders face in industry at this crossroads - reinvigorating the habits and skills of collective action to generate responses to scaled social and socio-technical challenges. Along the way, re-evaluating our agency and power also provokes practitioners to grapple with a new level of responsibility and accountability for their individual, institutional, and potential interpersonal and systemic power. With every new innovation, we press ourselves and each other as tech industry professionals to ask: What are these technologies enabling others to do, both positively and negatively? What impacts (or potential impacts) have we overlooked or ignored, out of a sense of habit, or industry siloing, or learned helplessness? What role might I have played (or be playing) in creating them? What responsibilities might this invoke for me as a leader, an innovator, a citizen, and a human being? And what plan might I forge for taking meaningful action, as an individual and as a leader in my field, to have an impact that aligns with the company, society, and impact I’m committed to build?
While this course is a beginning, not an endpoint, to these inquiries, our mission is to set a strong foundation with cross-sector tech professionals to build shared language, underpin key topic understanding, and convene a network of like-minded professionals who can continue grappling with complex issues and the responsibility for shared agency directly in design and practice. Past participants have had the chance to interact in unrecorded, candid sessions with distinguished guests and leaders. Course conveners have hosted Frances Haugen, Reid Hoffman, Congressman Ro Khanna, Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI), Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Meredith Whittaker (President of Signal), and others.
Outcomes: Through this course, practitioners will…
- Identify, name, and address situations in technology where ethics and societal issues are at stake during product or technology development.
- Gain and form principles and practices (through direct experience) to shape thoughtful responses to emerging technical opportunities and challenges as they emerge.
After completing this course, participants who complete the process will be invited into an ongoing community of practice for technologists and leaders working together to shape a responsible future for society and the field.
Who: As a course community, participants will meet others facing the slate of emerging issues in technology and society from the perspective of in-sector practitioners. From group product managers to frontline tech roles, engineering, customer operations, sales, marketing, trust and safety, policy, strategy, consulting, or research teams, participants will connect with leaders and voices from every background to ask rigorous questions and forge new approaches that share a common commitment to honest accounting of our agency and impact. In cohorts, tech practitioners will find themselves in conversation and exchange of unveiled perspectives with those guiding technology outside public companies and startups as well, including colleagues working in government, civil society, non-profits, journalism, or education. Together, these course and cohort members - who need not have a formal affiliation with Stanford - will form new connections and networks, breaking down barriers between undistinguished ideologies and siloes and vacuums of different industries’ unquestioned ideas. These cohorts will support leaders helping their own organizations and communities identify and face key questions that cut across emerging issues, identifying and addressing gaps and ways to combine cross-sectoral expertise to make a meaningful impact in the lives of real people going forward.
Founding Professors
This program builds upon the frameworks created by Rob Reich, Jeremy Weinstein, and Mehran Sahami. The trio created and established a course at Stanford University in 2019 coined CS182 - Ethics, Public Policy, and Technological Change. Together they co-wrote System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot, centralizing their learnings and research into a format for the masses.
Ethics, Technology, and Public Policy (ETPP) for practitioners was born out of Rob, Jeremy, and Mehran’s goal to offer this coursework to those on the frontlines. The course has been offered virtually four times, building and crafting a community of changemakers and of practice. After the Fall cohort in 2023, it was clear that there was further opportunity to implement real, tangible change using these existing educational frameworks. Within the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University, the program focuses specifically on extending resources and ethics + tech discovery to practitioners.
Beginning in 2024, this program is made possible in part by Frank McCourt in association with Stanford’s partnership with the Project Liberty Institute.
FAQs
What's in it for me?
Participants will walk away with materials and readings they can continue absorbing for years to come. These include materials they can share with their professional and personal communities, reading circles and teams; a new network of colleagues facing these issues head-on throughout technology, policy, and civil society; and concrete experience applying their course learnings to a project or leadership opportunity they identify in their everyday environment.
A non-credit bearing Record of Completion through the Stanford Center for Professional Development will be issued to those who complete the live course.
Who is this course for? Is it really for me?
This course is for practitioners in the field of technology (broadly defined) across disciplines, sectors, and job functions, whose work touches or creates impact at the intersection of our ethics, public policy, and technological change. Our live course prioritizes leaders ready to take the next step in examining their own potential gaps in recognizing agency and opportunities for accountability to guide a responsible tech future so that we can support and resource these leaders (at every stage and level of their careers) in developing networks and context to develop new modes of leadership that prioritize needs of society and business amidst the current pace of technological change.
Along that path, diversity and inclusion of different career stages and backgrounds are some of our greatest assets in shaping a new conversation in industry. We recognize this course is unfolding at a historic time in tech for workforce reinvention. If you’re not sure you are qualified, we urge you to please apply. We have been fortunate to host cohort members in the past who are between roles, discerning next steps, affected by layoffs in the tech industry or elsewhere, incubating companies or investments, rethinking their roles, or think you aren't “tech enough” - identifying as responsible for the future of the sector, and being willing to explore shared responsibility for that future from within, is sufficient. We see technology as a series of interlocking systems that cut across all industries and experiences, and we welcome interdisciplinary thinkers with varying degrees of experience.
I’m at a senior level in my firm. Is this course appropriate for me?
Yes. Past cohorts have included CEOs and Founders, Venture Capitalists, Board Members, Frontline Engineering or Product Policy employees, as well as scholars, educators, and organizational leaders, fellows, and Executive Directors from nonprofits and social impact organizations. As a senior leader, you may want to spend some time thinking about a project or challenge you might bring into the course environment that is sufficiently general to avoid touching on proprietary business content, but which is sufficiently impactful that resolving uncertainty will help move your organization’s mission or priorities forward.
I’m extremely technical. Will this course add value to my role?
Yes. Many past cohort members share that their technical work has sometimes felt isolated from other complementary studies from their undergrad experiences in Philosophy, Linguistics, History, or other humanities or social sciences fields. By connecting with other technical leaders throughout industry and civil society with a broad cross-section of expertise, you will gain context and perspective - as well as connections - that can help you mobilize your technical skills to more meaningfully influence responsible innovation and prudent design decisions in your organizational or disciplinary environment. Past students from technical backgrounds have also been significantly impacted by the perspective they’ve gained from hearing about the technical and algorithmic design issues they’re familiar with in the context of their philosophical and public policy implications. Arrive ready to diversify the set of issues you are invited to consider by the course environment and your colleagues, and you may find that this environment sets you up to make a broader and more meaningful impact and to detect issues earlier in technical development that can prevent or address downstream issues from fairness to business impact.
I’m from a non-U.S. background. Does this course address issues beyond the borders of the U.S.?
While the majority of our public policy context in this course will focus on the U.S. climate, we welcome diverse and global experts and stakeholders to this conversation as these issues are inherently global and interconnected far beyond the U.S.’s federal policy jurisdiction. While many tech company headquarters are located in the U.S., these are global issues - that the U.S. policy environment inextricably affects. Some of our most cross-cutting and impactful course discussions have come from participants and guest speakers who are aware of the pertinence and impact of the U.S. policy environment on tech development and regulation, but who bring a primary or secondary focus to addressing issues outside the U.S., either in their daily work or in what they aim to learn. The community we are developing interlinks tech practitioners from many countries and backgrounds with regulators and policy innovators from deliberately diverse jurisdictions, and we work together to learn more about the gaps and gains possible between jurisdictions during this unique era.