Project Lead – AI Ethics: AI Ethics Office (AEO)

Management Role

Full Time

Tokyo

About the job

Sony Group Corporation is seeking a Project Lead to join its AI Ethics Office. This Project Lead will work with stakeholders, including partners, government officials, experts from diverse fields, and Sony colleagues across the group globally. This is a full-time role that will begin in first half of FY2021. Sony Group Corporation is headquartered in Tokyo, with a global membership base and scope, but we will consider remote work.

Background

Through the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI), Sony aims to contribute to the development of a peaceful and sustainable society while delivering kando — a sense of excitement, wonder or emotion — to the world. At the same time, the influence of AI on society is a topic of much discussion.

Sony established the Sony Group AI Ethics Guidelines in September 2018 to guide all officers and employees to utilize AI and/or conduct AI-related R&D in a manner that fits within emerging social norms. The guidelines were subsequently revised to be in alignment with Sony’s Purpose of “fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology,” which was established in January 2019.

For further promotion of the Sony group's active use of AI, the AI Ethics Committee (AEC) has been established in December 2019 as an organization that confirms the validity of AI and R&D conducted by each organization within the Sony Group from an ethical point of view and deliberates in advance before implementing the use. Under supervision of AEC, its working groups have been engaging in research, engineering effort, and building system as well as processes to advance responsible development and utilization of AI technologies.

As a secretariat of AEC, AEO at Sony works to build systems and process that advance responsible AI and operate with the entire organization across the group, including corporate divisions and business groups such as electronics, entertainment, and finance.

About this role

Project Leads play a role at AEO in supporting product teams on identifying, analyzing risks related to AI ethics, and treating such risks which could have material negative impact for stakeholders if not treated properly, in their product development life cycle. In addition, Project Leads also work for building and operating AI governance system within the group including overseas organizations across multi business segments. This Project Lead will work closely with working groups of AEC in providing project management support.

AEO is a fast-paced organization that often requires quick turnarounds, so initiative and efficiency is critical for success in this position. Because of the scope of AEO’s multi-stakeholder assignments, the ideal candidate should have experience working on projects with diverse stakeholders.

Key responsibilities include:

Assessment process design, implementation, and improvement:

• Design multi-stakeholder processes, including AEC and engaging with relevant business domain experts such as gaming, pictures, music, and finance
• Partner closely with product teams, human rights, diversity and inclusion, quality assurance, security, privacy, legal, and other stakeholders to define and implement responsible AI practices throughout the global organization and product offerings and internal use

Use case management

• Work with product/corporate teams as an AI ethics expert to support their AI ethics assessment practice and review sensitive use cases and identify relevant subject-matter experts within AEC or corporate departments to advise on these cases.
• Facilitate engagement with these experts to enable thorough and efficient knowledge transfer from those experts and recommendations.
• Work with AEC and AEO to evaluate the product teams’ implementation of the recommendations; share these learnings with group companies to improve the “implementability” of future recommendations
• Drive rapid-response focus-team efforts when needed to develop a corporate-wise perspective on time-urgent sensitive use case topics

Project management and multi-stakeholder coordination

• Work with company leadership to develop a strategy for how products and interna use of AI align to the principles of the Sony Group AI Ethics Guidelines
• Work on exploring and building a strong network of external experts on AI ethics: defining suitable structure to enable thorough and efficient knowledge transfer and recommendations from such advisors
• Manage workstream planning, strategy, and execution
• Coordinate across team members to ensure timely and high-quality execution of tasks
• Define, organize, and facilitate key convenings (e.g., define agenda and goals; ensure the right participants for intended outcomes)

Key qualifications include:

• Strong written and oral communication skills and an ability to collaborate with different disciplines and roles in research, legal, engineering, etc.
• Knowledge of and experience in the field of AI and/or Machine Learning, especially with regards to ethical considerations in deploying AI and ML.
• A track record for quality project execution, including experience managing multiple work streams simultaneously and ability to deliver well-executed projects on time
• Exceptional professionalism and project management skills
• Creativity and flexibility to achieve goals and outcomes
• Adaptability when working with people from different industries, domains, and types of expertise
• Comfort in navigating highly cross-functional internal Sony Group organization
• Ability to quickly gain familiarity with relevant technical and social science literature
• 5+ years of experience working in professional environments, ideally in cross-functional roles
• Experience in evaluating the ethical and/or socio-technical implications of the AI deployment or Machine Learning
• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in one or more of the following fields: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Human-Computer Interaction, Data Science, Ethics

Preferred qualifications

• Experience running Projects with a wide variety of stakeholders
• Experience launching new initiatives and/or working in start-up environments
• Experience working in the technology sector, especially on AI-related teams
• Experience in client-facing professional services, ideally with some degree of interfacing with executives
• Graduate or higher degree with research or coursework related to AI ethics. Familiarity with machine learning is ideal.
• Experience partnering with legal and policy-making disciplines is highly desirable
• Japanese language skill is plus.

Working Location

Tokyo