What I’m reading – Hetty Van Hale
Game on! Passionate about sport, Hetty Van Hale MInstD has spent more than two decades on not-for-profit boards with expertise in sports governance and strategic risk. Her current roles include High Performance Sport NZ, Central Lakes Trust and the Northland Events Centre Trust.
This week, the Kororāreka Russell-based director shares what she describes as a frightening and compelling book about machine intelligence.
What is the name of the ‘governance/business’ book you’re reading, or can recommend?
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom.
How would you describe the style of writing?
Relatively easy to read and, although highly theoretical in parts, the ideas and scenarios the book raises make for compelling, if somewhat frightening, reading.
What drew you to the book?
Artificial intelligence is top of mind for every director at the moment, in particular, how organisations can harness it to gain efficiencies for the organisation and the pitfalls associated with it. I wanted to find out more about AI and this book was recommended by Alastair Miller from Kordia, who spoke in an IoD webinar last year – “Unravelling the AI mysteries: the director files”.
What resonated with you the most?
What resonated most was the author’s belief that the development of machine superintelligence should be viewed with utmost caution, because implementing control mechanisms, motivations, and values are fraught with difficulty. Control is about how to build in adequate ways to be able to shut down the AI or control it if it started to develop the wrong motivations. Motivations is about ensuring the AI always retains benign motivations and does not begin to develop malevolent motivations. Values is about uploading the right values at the start of the seed AI and the problem of deciding which values to load. In other words, what would we want a superintelligence to want?
Bostrom argues that an initial superintelligence may be able to gain a strategic advantage which could lead to the formation of a singleton [Bostrom’s term for a single decision-maker controlling the world], potentially enabling it to shape the future of earth-originating intelligent life. What could happen from that point on would depend on the motivations of the superintelligence. Malignant failures could occur and scenarios where machine intelligence gains a strategic advantage – and this should be viewed with grave concern.
Among many other topics, he discusses the problem of control – if machine brains come to surpass human brains, how can we control what happens in the future to ensure that the fate of our species does not depend on the actions of powerful AI?
What is something you’ve taken away from reading that now follows you into your role on boards?
It is important for every director to be constantly learning in order to stay relevant to their board. We all need to evolve as directors to slow our own “depreciation rate”. Boards need the ability to be a learning board and directors must be committed to their own ongoing learning. We must have curiosity, challenge ourselves and others, understand the environment we’re operating in and continue to ask ourselves: “Am I fit for purpose?”
Understanding key technology trends such as developments in AI is a key part of this.
How does reading feed into your continued governance practice/learning?
Once upon a time, at the start of my working life, I was a librarian, so I am an avid reader. Reading, along with webinars, forms an essential part of how I keep up to date with governance practices, ideas, issues and trends on a day-to-day basis.
Who should read this book and at what stage in their governance career?
Every director should read this book. Understanding research and development in the AI space should be a key part of every director’s personal curriculum at any stage of a governance career.
When you’re not reading books on business or governance, what kind of books are you likely to pick up?
I read a huge variety of books. I’m a big fan of supporting New Zealand writers, so I buy a lot of books and would most usually be found reading either New Zealand history or fiction. I have recently finished reading The Deck by Fiona Farrell and am currently struggling my way through The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi by Ned Fletcher. A fascinating and well-researched analysis, but not the easiest read – best read in the daytime, not at night!
Last month I read a wonderful book which I can highly recommend to anyone: How did we get into this mess? Politics, Equality, Nature by George Monbiot.
What are some of the most pertinent governance issues top of mind for you currently, and why?
Climate change – driving change so we can move organisations from baseline measurement of carbon footprints to meaningful action.
Artificial intelligence – it’s the new frontier with the potential to change the world dramatically. At a basic level we need governance policy to guide its use within our organisations. We also need to understand its potential for good (and for harm).
Financial resilience – especially in the not-for-profit sector and in sport, budgets are being squeezed by inflationary pressures, a consequent reduction in corporate sponsorship and global uncertainty.
Board culture – it is vitally important that boards have clarity on foundational values and culture. Its oversight must be a whole board responsibility, particularly because it is so interlinked with strategy and risk. Culture begins in the boardroom and if it goes bad, the whole organisation is affected. It has to be nurtured.
Adding value – change is everywhere and it's fast. Boards have to learn to quickly adapt, and every director must keep themselves current with the growing number of economic, political, technological and environmental challenges. Each and every director has a responsibility to ask themselves: “Am I adding value or am I just warming the seat?”
What has been the most surprising thing you’ve discovered about yourself and others while being on a board?
You learn something about yourself when you meet and work with other people who come from completely different backgrounds and think differently to you. It makes you question assumptions you might have and helps you identify your own unconscious biases. I have learned over time, if I really want to analyse a situation or problem, that it is best to seek out the opinions of those who tend to think at the opposite end of the spectrum to me, rather than the opinions of those I know tend to think the same as I do.
If there was anything you want to see more of at the board table, what would it be, and why?
I’d like to see even more diversity of thought, especially on listed company boards, because divergent perspectives provide more robust thinking. I’d also like to see more real analysis at the end of each meeting of the question: “Did we add value today?”
I think many boards pay lip service to this question.