An Industry Benchmark for Data Fairness: Sony’s Alice Xiang

On today’s episode, Sam talks with Alice Xiang, global head of AI governance at Sony and lead research scientist for AI ethics at Sony AI, about what it actually takes to put responsible artificial intelligence into practice at scale. Alice shares how Sony moved early on AI ethics and why governance, not just principles, is now the real challenge as AI spreads across products and workflows. The conversation dives into FHIBE, Sony’s publicly available and ethically sourced benchmark for evaluating bias in computer vision, and why measuring fairness is often harder than fixing it. Along the way, they tackle data consent, “data nihilism,” and the very real risks of deploying biased systems in everyday and high-stakes contexts. Read the episode transcript here. Guest bio: As the global head of AI governance at Sony, Alice Xiang leads the team guiding the establishment of AI governance policies and governance frameworks across the company’s business units. She’s also the lead research scientist for AI ethics at Sony AI, which is working on cutting-edge sociotechnical research to enable the development of more responsible AI solutions. Xiang holds a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, a master’s in development economics from Oxford University, and a master’s in statistics and bachelor’s in economics from Harvard University. *Please take our listener survey: ⁠mitsmr.com/podcastsurvey⁠ It's short — we promise! — and all respondents will receive a free MIT SMR article collection, "Maximizing the Value of Generative AI." Me, Myself, and AI is a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and hosted by Sam Ransbotham. It is engineered by David Lishansky and produced by Allison Ryder. We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials. ME, MYSELF, AND AI® is a federally registered trademark of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.