Dr. Seth Dobrin: An Ardent AI Innovator Expanding Tech Horizons with Unique Capabilities

Artificial intelligence is taking wide strides in many industries. With amazing innovations at the helm, AI leaders have a major role in strategizing growth. Tech front-runners are using artificial intelligence in categories like knowledge management, virtual assistants, autonomous vehicles, digital workplace, and crowdsourced data. It is the responsibility of modern leaders to make AI and automation technologies an available competency across all departments. Under their leadership, analysts and engineers work closely with business roles to put AI to work in organizations. Such a versatile AI leader is Dr. Seth Dobrin. In an interview with Analytics Insight, he shares valuable insights on the responsible implementation of AI systems. 

When Responsible AI Meets the Noble Intent 

Dr. Seth has recently stepped out of IBM as the first-ever Global Chief AI Officer and jumped into the role of the President of The Responsible AI Institute (RAI Institute), a not-for-profit organization focused on creating a more equitable society through the responsible implementation of AI systems. Additionally, Seth has recently founded Qantm AI, a technology and professional service provider in Dubai and the UAE.

The RAI Institute is focused on helping organizations fast-track their responsible AI success by helping prepare organizations to effectively build, buy and supply AI in a fair, safe, and responsible manner that puts AI accountability and consumer advocacy in the center of their AI strategy. For companies building and buying AI, the prime conversations have been focused on AI for employment and establishing the foundational policy, governance, and controls depending on the organization's maturity. For supplying AI, the demand has been from both the buy and the supply sides with AI-focused startups wishing to differentiate themselves and major providers of employment and HR-related AI-enabled capabilities.

A Tech Enthusiast Who Never Stops Improving

Seth was IBM's first-ever Global Chief AI Officer where he led the entire corporate AI strategy. In his role, he was responsible for connecting AI development and governance across IBM's divisions with a systemic creation of business outcomes. In his current role as the President of the Responsible AI Institute (RAI Institute), Seth is responsible for building RAI Institute into the de facto standard for validation that automated systems are implemented responsibly. This includes building the necessary membership base of corporates, software vendors, and professional services organizations to a critical mass as well as the offerings that meet the demands of society, regulators, and the markets.

Seth has a long experience in innovating enterprises through data and AI extending beyond RAII and IBM to many other companies. By sharing his expertise, he has helped several Fortune 500 companies to design and execute AI strategies via a human-centered methodology that he has created. He also assures to provide the same level of expertise to Qantm AI customers through assets developed and his previous experiences and learnings. 

Seth has earned multiple recognitions in the field including Unconferences 2023 Top 100 Data & Analytics Professional Award and has been named one of Corinium's Top 100 Leaders in Data & Analytics 2022. He was also nominated as AI Innovator of the Year in 2021 and won the AI Summit award, which recognized Seth as a business leader who has trail-blazed breakthrough AI solutions. 

Seth contributes to the scientific community with his technical and scientific eminence in data and AI by serving as a member of Calyxt's Scientific Advisory Board, as a member of the advisory board of the Baruch Department of Math and Statistics, and a member of the Arizona State University Biotechnology's Advisory board. He is also a member of Protocol's Braintrust and the XPrize Braintrust.

He is the creator of a new human-centered methodology for designing and executing an AI strategy. The framework enables organizational transformation through a bespoke design-driven process that guides the prioritization and implementation of a well-defined set of AI initiatives that align with a company's business strategy. Seth's outcome-based strategy fundamentally changes every company's area, from business operations to product development, by ensuring continuous and responsible delivery of tangible business results.

Thanks to his innovative work focused on bridging the business value of AI to its technical execution through a human-centered approach, Seth has become a prominent voice in the world of AI. He has been featured in major international outlets such as Inc. Magazine, Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The National, The Gulf News, and In.com.

He has spoken at numerous events, conferences, and institutions around the world including The World AI Forum, Cannes, AI Summit, TEDx Buffalo, Gitex Technology Week, London Tech Week, The AI World Summit, the CDO Summit, the Spark Summit, and IBM Think. 

Furthermore, Seth has also been interviewed for many podcasts and video series, including The Cube, ZDNet, The CDO magazine, the Equal AI podcast, the New York Times report's podcast Eye on AI, Smart Talks with IBM podcast featuring Malcolm Gladwell, AI in Business podcast, and many others.  

Cultivating a Human-Centric Approach in AI Development and Deployment 

Seth recalls that throughout his career, he has been focused on using technology to solve some of the time's biggest challenges, from understanding the human genome to addressing human health challenges and creating higher-yielding crops to be able to feed the world to ensuring AI is implemented responsibly. Through all this, he has learned that the most important component is to have a value-based and human-centric strategy for AI implementation and adoption. Seth states that enterprises need to align with business values and focus on the humans involved and/or impacted. Additionally, there is a dire need for diversity in the teams designing, building, and implementing AI; diversity that represents the society in which a given AI system is being implemented.

According to Seth, AI does indeed create value for organizations. However, he feels that in recent years, it has become apparent that the responsible implementation of AI is critical for societal adoption and acceptance of AI. Responsibility is more important than fairness or explainability. It requires the measuring and monitoring of the six dimensions of an AI system which are a combination of education, processes, workflows, and technologies – explainability and interpretability, bias and fairness, systems operations, robustness, security and safety, consumer protection, and accountability.

Turning Business Pains into Tech Purposes 

The operationalization of AI in a value-driven, human-centric and responsible manner is not straightforward, explains Seth. He adds that building AI strategies that are aligned to business strategies with appropriate business metrics are not yet taught in business schools and only comes from working in the real world. On top of that, the need to understand how an AI-enabled system will impact human beings, engaging with any organization, and how to apply the tools necessary for responsible AI implementations adds additional layers of complexity that only a few understand. Seth claims that the responsible AI market is in its infancy and is just developing. The challenge and value are that people can define the market when more demand is created. 

Boosting the AI-Human Relationship to Extract Business Value 

In Seth's opinion, every AI leader needs to have the ability to connect their strategies with technology to derive business value, in the context of the humans who are ultimately using or being impacted by a given AI system. Additionally, he or she will need to be an expert at shifting entire organizations without necessarily having direct-line accountability of the teams.

Extra Focus on AI Innovations 

Seth declares that the most important thing in designing AI systems for a target audience is integrating design and a human-centric approach from the beginning and not as an afterthought. This means understanding who will be impacted by the AI system and who will be using it (they may or may not be the same humans), what the AI system will be used for, how it will be used, and why it is even being built in the first place. The goal should always be making a human's life better, cheaper, and/or faster. Seth feels that extra focus on building responsible AI systems is required whenever it is impacting the health, wealth, or livelihood of a human.

Changing the Norms of Leadership with Tech 

AI indeed has the potential to generate a significant amount of value. In fact, PwC estimated AI to add more than US$15.7T to the global economy by 2030. In accordance with this, Seth says that leaders need to think more holistically about how AI can help their customers and employees to be better, cheaper, or faster. Additionally, leaders should have an eye on third-party tools that may contain AI and have a solid understanding of how responsibly they are implemented on different dimensions. 

Marching Towards an AI-backed Society 

Seth reveals that RAI Institute is poised to be the de facto standard for the validation and certification of AI systems to ensure that they are aligned with corporate policies, industry standards, and regulatory requirements. AI has the potential to create a better and safer society, or it has the potential to propagate known and unknown harms. So, the companies have a choice to make and it is which camp they want to fall in. This is especially important when the health, wealth, or livelihood of a human is involved in the decision that the AI system takes.

Strategies for Success, according to Dr. Seth

Seth wants new leaders to start with a strategy that connects their organizational objectives to AI. Then they will have to make sure to keep the humans in mind, who will be impacted by the AI system. It is also important to ask who will be using the AI system and how will it be implemented. There are more questions like what human problems is the system trying to solve and why it is being built in the first place.

He further states that vanity metrics such as the number of models built, or a number of API calls are fun, but they have no business value. He wants the new leaders to surely provide a business value such as how much money it will make or save.. They should also know how much it is making the customers' lives better. He concludes, "When you talk about the work you and your teams are doing start and end with the value creation and the return on the investment."