Good Governance and Business Integrity in the Age of Exponential Technology

The concept that law does not keep pace with technology is decades-old, as legislators, policymakers and regulators struggle to understand complex and fast-evolving realities, and to pass and implement the necessary oversight measures. The same can also be said of corporate governance, compliance programs, and the informal norms of business standards, ethics and integrity. Moreover, the idea that the rate of technological change is exponential – Moore’s law – implies that technology will not just stay ahead, but that the gap will widen. 

Given the increasingly pervasive technological nature of our economy, what does this mean for stakeholders with a vested interest in seeing best conduct in the private sector? Are we bound to face a future where “tech broligarchs” set the rules for how their companies behave and interact with society and government? From data privacy, to employment prospects, to natural resources and more, what recourse do we average citizens have? 

These are the types of questions that Andrea Bonime-Blanc wrestles with in her new book, “Governing Pandora: Leading in the Age of Generative AI and Exponential Technology.” Bonime-Blanc, founder and CEO of GEC Risk Advisory, is an attorney and holds a PhD in Political Science, and has advised business, nonprofits and governments on issues of strategy, governance, ethics, compliance, leadership, corporate responsibility, stakeholder accountability and more. She frequently works with organizations on “future-proofing” their risk profiles. I recently had the chance to discuss the book with her and delve into these issues further.

Bonime-Blanc defines the attributes of what she calls "exponential technologies”: velocity, volatility, uncertainty, asymmetry, and interconnectivity. Such attributes raise the risk profile – and the need for responsible governance of – these technologies. While many technologies have these qualities, she focuses on AI and GenAI; biotechnology and synthetic biology; advanced materials; frontier computing; and autonomous systems – technologies that have opened the proverbial “Pandora’s box.” Her book covers a wide range of issues, but for BriberyMatters, we focused on risk management and business integrity.

One topic we probed is a distinction that appears to run through the book: a difference between companies that create cutting-edge technologies and those companies that deploy such technology to advance their business objectives. I asked her whether I correctly interpreted the book as implying that Fortune 100 companies, often outside of the tech sector and with more established governance and risk management cultures, tend to be more responsible in their use of technology than newer firms with a “move fast and break things” culture. Bonime-Blanc agreed, but further noted that certain technology companies, citing Microsoft and Google, have also matured and themselves developed responsible governance practices.

The distinction, she explained, often boils down to the CEO/board of directors relationship. A board must have “at least some institutional check on behavior.” In founder-led and founder-dominated companies,” she told me, governance is shakier. She cites OpenAI's well-publicized governance crisis as one example of how things can go awry. However, in her view, companies building technologies, particularly with AI, should bear greater responsibility, what she calls "first impression" responsibility: to be more accountable to users, to ensure their data is high quality, rigorously tested and not riddled with hallucinations. However, she says, these companies are too often instead focused on “winning” the AI race, no matter the cost.

Bonime-Blanc pointed to another gap in the governance structures of younger technology companies: the ethics and compliance functions are often minimal or folded into the general counsel's role, without real standing in the C-suite. She believes that general counsels need to evolve to be genuine resources for CEOs, boards, and stakeholders in an environment defined by novel and fast-moving risks. Finally, she told me, tech companies need to recruit for their boards differently, drawing in what she described as “empathic polymaths”: systems thinkers who understand technology and its societal impact, and who have the knowledge and personality to push back against their CEOs. In the book, she details the “exponential governance mindset” that companies will need to properly manage the new risk landscape.

We also discussed an interesting historical analogy. Some of today's tech leaders, she suggested, resemble business figures in the pre-FCPA era, operating with a cavalier attitude toward integrity that was prevalent in the corporate sector before that law changed their risk calculus. To that point, I asked her, absent legislative and regulatory leverage, what incentives exist to change the behavior of fast-moving tech firms. After all, internal compliance and good governance are often downstream of regulation.

Bonime-Blanc agreed, and noted that the regulatory environment under the current US administration has moved in the wrong direction. The previous administration was advancing testing standards and auditing principles through executive orders, but the current moment has stripped back oversight, dismissing even industry voices that raise concerns. States are partially filling the vacuum, with California, Colorado, and New York advancing AI-related legislation, and the European Union has introduced greater regulatory controls. She explained that litigation can chip away at the riskiest practices, but was clear that case law can be too slow and reactive. Going forward, she said, a more proactive, safety-oriented federal framework will be needed.  

Despite the scale of the challenges she describes in the book and highlighted when we spoke, Bonime-Blanc is a tech optimist. She not only believes in the transformative power of the technologies she explores in “Governing Pandora” to have a positive impact in the world, but also, she said, in the human capacity to govern that technology responsibly.

Marc Schleifer

Governance, Democracy and Economic Development Expert