The Ethics Imperative: Media Executive Aalia Lanius Warns of AI’s Moral Blindspots

After getting to know Aalia better, I dove right into the questions. When I asked her if her company uses AI tools, she told me that she has multiple companies, and they do utilize AI in different ways.

UNSUGARCOATED Media has an award-nominated podcast, “UNSUGARCOATED with Aalia”. Aalia noted that they “utilize [AI] in…actually our podcasting, some of our assessments, some of our production” and that “it just helps maybe expedite certain areas that maybe would’ve taken, especially as a producer, more time”. 

In regards to Convergence Media Law, AI has even more use. Aalia detailed how AI tools are useful for script analysis as well as predicting project viability. In addition to this, AI is also helpful for her husband’s legal contracts by “calling up the information or not being so repetitive”. 

From Aalia’s responses, it is interesting to note that AI tools are useful for multiple areas of work. AI tools have versatility and are extremely useful for professionals in a variety of ways. 

I followed up by asking what types of tools Aalia uses for UNSUGARCOATED Media’s content creation. She noted that AI tools could be helpful for brainstorming a season for her podcast. She noted that it can help to “create… ideas, concepts”. For her post-production process, Aalia mentioned using a tool called Opus Clip, which ultimately helps to get clips out faster. 

AI tools also can help to generate subtitles for the podcast, give short trailers or the best clips from the podcast. In terms of promotion, AI tools can help to create the posts, help with the hashtags and more. She noted that AI tools help her team “do all their work quicker, which is really the point, you know, for me to have them do it quicker, to free up time to do other things”. 

Aalia highlighted how despite using AI tools to aid in the production of her podcast, they still make sure to “still go through and do the edits firsthand because a lot of our stuff is very sensitive, socially sensitive”. She then said, “No matter what you do with AI, you always have to evaluate it”.

When I asked Aalia this question, she immediately said “It’s complex”, and brought up the author Ray Kurzwell, and his novel, The Age of Spiritual Machines, written in 2000. She mentioned how Kurzwell states “that technology has kind of spoiled us. To this point to where we lean on it so much”. She then acknowledged how AI is requiring us to “re-skill”. She said, “Re-skilling so that you can maneuver and pivot and understand no differently than the way people did before, right before when we had typewriters and then you went to the PC and then we went from PCs to windows and then we went, you know, all this stuff. It’s the relationship is one that we do have to be careful of, that we do not become so reliant”. 

She then went on to reference “the godfather of AI”, Yoshua Bengio. She noted how 

Bengio warned us that there is no guarantee that AI cannot develop autonomy and “We could find ourselves in a position where we are the lesser capable life force ”. In conjunction with Bengio, Aalia noted that Kurzwell warned: “right now our brain is the computer. Every computer modeled after the human brain. But what happens when AI meets that potential and then actually exceeds it?”

Ultimately, Aalia raised a great point regarding the battle between humanity and the machine. Right now we are at a balance, but there are concerns of AI becoming too powerful. It is important for humans to re-skill, and learn how to properly integrate AI into their work so they are not being bulldozed by AI’s strong capabilities. 

An area that Aalia focused on was how AI does not have ethical training. She noted that “AI doesn’t have that understanding yet. You know… in technology. So one, ethically we need to ensure that the people programming are not introducing the very same biases, which they already are… We’re already seeing some of those implicit biases that we see in human nature… programmed into AI”. 

In addition to ethics, Aalia also mentioned how proofreading is also an area where human work is necessary. She said, “AI does make mistakes and what we have also observed with AI is that when it comes to problems, when it comes to things that are like stressful. AI cannot handle it”. She told a story of how an AI program for a company noticed a customer’s account owed $3. Instead of a traditional notice of dues, the situation escalated quickly and the system recommended involving the FBI over the $3 charge. This demonstrated her point that the AI lacks ethics and needs to be monitored and proofread. 

She stated that in the film/entertainment space, people have not been replaced, but there has been change occurring along the way. Within her own company, Aalia noted that they have not used AI to replace any human work, and “that will never happen”. However, she did draw attention to the inevitability of change in the workforce due to AI. 

She noted that some employers may say how much time they can save with AI, but if employers are not teaching their employees what to do with their free time then it can ultimately just be wasteful. 

In addition to this, she detailed an example of human replacement by AI in San Francisco. She talked about a company called Waymo, that has quickly made its mark on the scene with its driverless taxi services. This service has become competitive with Uber and begun to impact the lives of Uber drivers. Aalia highlighted how Waymo has begun “wiping out [Uber driver]’s ability to make some money for themselves and their family”. There is no doubt that AI technology has begun to change the way humans work, it is just a matter of how humans will deal with these changes.

With this question, Aalia said she wishes “to enable people to have the time to actually re-skill. To do something more, you know…to gain”. She detailed how she is an advisor for another company. They have their employees take a certification course for AI to be aware of the changes in technology. Ultimately, their hope is to “create an environment where our employees learn and are on top of the most cutting edge technology”. 

She says, “it’s not replacing them. It’s actually helping them do more.”

Aalia told me that her takeaway from this event, “was that for a nine o’clock morning summit in downtown Los Angeles, the room was full of people that want to understand this technology, that want to understand, you know, how to navigate this”. She went on to say that the “desire to learn” was there and that “when you build a community of people like that, you’re more likely to be successful in whatever challenges we might face during…these upcoming changes for our communities”. 

Immediately Aalia said her favorite topic covered at the Global AI Council Summit was the “ethics” and “understanding around the responsibility with AI”. Aalia referred to this time period as the “wild, wild, west” in regards to technology and who actually cements their place in the tech world. Because AI is so prominent, it is necessary that we create rules with AI. Aalia then said “let’s remember to keep our ethics at the forefront and our understanding of how this does impact human lives… and ultimately human communities.”

Aalia stated, “The most important thing to ask is what is your track record and who is somebody I can actually speak to that’s gone through… and has seen results?” She then went on to mention that the cheapest option or the most expensive option is not necessarily the best for a client, but rather what has the best results. 

Aalia Lanius offered relevant, fresh, opinions regarding this era of AI. Key elements she focused on were the integrity and ethics of AI and using it in the workplace. This is a very important subject to highlight in an area where AI is rapidly progressing and becoming more human-like every day. Read —– for an opinion piece regarding this interview.