Extract from Petra Pasternak’s article: “Best Practices for Using AI with Good Governance, from IBM AGC Donna Haddad”
Donna Haddad remembers how exciting it was to watch IBM’s Watson AI supercomputer beat the reigning (human) world champions on Jeopardy in early 2011. The era of natural language processing had taken off. Haddad, who was in-house counsel at IBM at the time, knew she wanted to be a part of it.
When IBM launched Watson as a startup AI business, Haddad jumped at the opportunity to help train the system in Arabic, in which she’s fluent. She went on to serve as senior legal counsel for Watson AI, helping to grow the business globally.
Fast forward 10 years. “The world changed with ChatGPT and foundation models,” Haddad says. “It’s very different, but I’ve been excited to be working on it and see the evolution of the technology.”
Today, as IBM Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Haddad is focusing on what it takes for businesses to successfully adopt and deploy generative AI. As a founding member of IBM’s AI Ethics Board, she’s involved in helping to develop guardrails for the responsible use of these powerful technologies.
Haddad recently sat down with Everlaw to discuss IBM’s philosophy and approach to GenAI, the obligations of legal professionals in helping steer the development and use of these technologies, and her optimism about the potential benefits.
