Bringing Ethics to Open Source Development

The Linux Foundation leads open-source development and is the go-to authority for training and certification in open-source development. In early 2021, an increase in open-source ethics scandals revealed a significant gap in the Linux Foundation’s available training database. Lacking internal Ethics expertise with open-source development, the foundation partnered with Ethical Intelligence to quickly address this training gap.

The partnership has resulted in the up-skilling of 200,000+ developers and the course is now considered the standard for ethics in open-source development. Ethical Intelligence identified the core Ethics challenges at stake in open source development to be questions of developer responsibility, safeguarding, and development at varied scales.

The first ethical question around responsibility emerged when we identified the dichotomy between code produced and code implemented. Different stakeholders, that work in different environments produce code with various intended use cases. What safeguards are needed, and also implementable, to check this source code and prevent ethical debt?

THE ETHICS CHALLENGE

Ethical Intelligence identified the core Ethics challenges at stake in open source development to be questions of developer responsibility, safeguarding, and development at varied scales. The first ethical question around responsibility emerged when we identified the dichotomy between code produced and code implemented. Different stakeholders, that work in different environments produce code with various intended use-cases. What safeguards are needed, and also implementable, to check this source code and prevent ethical debt?

THE EI PROCESS

Ethical Intelligence matched three industry experts and spent a month researching the foundations of open-source Ethics. We identified what skillset developers would need in order to develop ethical open-source technology, the current gaps in terms of knowledge, and the most effective ways to implement Ethics in open-source. EI then designed a clear, effective, and easily adaptable training specifically oriented to the open-source workflow. We managed this project from intake to execution - designing, building, and implementing the training which now allows developers to be certified in Ethical open-source development.

Rasa is a B2B provider whose platform enables enterprises to create their own customer service chatbots or virtual assistants. As their technology scaled and was implemented quickly, the founders and executives of Rasa wanted an ethics diagnostic report to determine potential ethical debt and to align their technology with the emerging ethical standards of the industry. Rasa’s open-source product allows developers to create conversational AI virtual assistants, otherwise known as chatbots.

As Rasa's product is open-source, Rasa is considered responsible for the source code but does not have control or input on the implementation and use of its code in the industry. Rasa needed an ethics diagnostic insight into how it could positively influence the ethical development of its chatbots and wanted expertise in creating safeguards for future misuse.

HOW RASA BECAME AN INDUSTRY STANDARD FOR CHATBOTS THE RESULTS

Rasa is a B2B provider whose platform enables enterprises to create their own customer service chatbots or virtual assistants. As their technology scaled and was implemented quickly, the founders and executives of Rasa wanted an ethics diagnostic report to determine potential ethical debt and to align their technology with the emerging ethical standards of the industry.

THE ETHICS CHALLENGE

Rasa’s open-source product allows developers to create conversational AI virtual assistants, otherwise known as chatbots. As Rasa's product is open-source, Rasa is considered responsible for the source code but does not have control or input on the implementation and use of their code in the industry. Rasa needed an ethics diagnostic insight into how it could positively influence the ethical development of its chatbots and wanted expertise in creating safeguards for future misuse.

THE EI PROCESS

Ethical Intelligence led Rasa's product and engineering teams in a series of diagnostic, forecasting, and road mapping workshops uncovering key points of potential ethical debt. EI’s team of experts in ethics, open source development, and natural language processing identified and designed a product roadmap on behalf of Rasa outlining a foundational product update and software design that better aligned Rasa’s business goals with their ethical values.

THE RESULTS

"It was incredible experience to see Ethical Intelligence take the same level of care to our business, our customers and our technology that we pride ourselves in bringing everyday to work." - Scott Pruitt, VP of Product Management

Through a partnership with Ethical Intelligence, Rasa has seen an increase in customer loyalty, community growth, and brand reputation. Internally, they’ve also experienced an increase in employee satisfaction, retention, and engagement. Rasa is now considered the industry standard for chatbots and Virtual Assistants and by avoiding Ethical Debt has been able to launch and scale successfully globally.

HOW ANYONE EMBEDDED ETHICS INTO ITS CORE DESIGN TO BECOME AN AWARD WINNING APP

When Anyone's cofounder Alfred first left the Google marketing team, he swore he would never return to technology. In his own words, he saw a lot of good people do some really bad things, and he was afraid of the impact that unchecked innovation could negatively bring to users. However, Alfred soon had an idea for a new tech business, and found himself faced with a seemingly impossible challenge: how to bring ethics into the core of Anyone's design so that his team could innovate with confidence and build a solution that inspired user trust?

THE CHALLENGE

Anyone was building an application for five-minute phone calls for advice, with the potential to transform how we network in the digital age. Anyone knew that user trust would be essential to the ultimate success of the app, and understood that the best way to build this trust would be to embed ethics by design from day one. However, Anyone was still a very young startup, which meant that the company needed an ethics solution that would adapt and grow alongside its needs. The team at Anyone was facing daily ethical challenges that were quickly becoming overwhelming to address while still staying on track to reach their development KPIs, forcing the team to make devastating tradeoffs between the impact and production of the app.

THE SOLUTION

Anyone needed an agile ethics solution, and fast. To address this need, Ethical Intelligence ran a month-long Ethics Diagnostic to uncover, define and apply the ethical principles that now guide Anyone's product design decision-making. Once Anyone's baseline was established through the Ethics Diagnostic, Ethical Intelligence brought Anyone onto the EI Ethics Board, a decision-support tool designed to help Anyone align their technology with their values and business objectives. The EI Ethics Board is now utilized by Anyone's entire team to check for ethical risks, explore new value-driven solutions, and provide domain expert guidance in the app’s development.

THE RESULTS

As Anyone's competitor Clubhouse continues to drop in users, Anyone has steadily grown its loyal user base and is on track to reach 100k active users by the end of 2023 thanks to the trust built using Ethical Intelligence solutions. Since starting with Ethical Intelligence, Anyone has won Fast Company's "World Changing Idea" and secured $4.3M in seed funding through their active use of ethics.