Summary of Podcast - AI in Sustainable Finance

00:00:00 - 00:30:00

This podcast discusses the role of artificial intelligence in sustainable finance, with a focus on the ethical implications of the technology. The speaker discusses how AI is being used to assess sustainability factors in companies, and how data bias can be a challenge in this process. They suggest that policymakers should be thinking about these issues and developing a framework to deal with them.

• 00:00:00 Stephen Boylan from Co-Founder and Mentor at Startup Grind, discusses how artificial intelligence is being used to assess sustainability factors in companies. Various techniques are used, including natural language processing, named entity recognition, and sentiment analysis. One common challenge is access to data, and verifying information is difficult. Stephen also talks about the challenges of reporting on negative news, and how to do so factually.
• 00:05:00 The video discusses the challenges of reporting news responsibly, including the use of biased reporting. It also discusses the importance of data visualization and machine learning in this process.
• 00:10:00 Podcast discusses the use of data sources to compute a company's sustainability factor. Primary data sources used are documentation, news outlet, and alternative data sources. Bias can be introduced into a model when sources are not diverse.
• 00:15:00 The speaker discusses how carbon intensity numbers can be misleading, and how human input is important in verifying data. They mention a company that used an algorithm to discriminate against female workers, and how human input is important in identifying risk in data.
• 00:20:00 Podcast host discusses ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to support sustainable finance, describing how AI tools are overcoming the data challenge and providing examples. He also discusses the ethical implications of AI.
• 00:25:00 The speaker discusses the ethical implications of AI and its potential to impact human life. They say that while the technology has progressed to a point where it is being used in some businesses, there are still some difficult questions that need to be answered. He suggests that policymakers should be thinking about these issues and developing a framework to deal with them.
• 00:30:00 The speaker discusses the different ways technology can be used in finance, and how each approach has its own benefits and drawbacks. He notes that the choice of approach is ultimately a political one.