The Cost of Truth Telling - Pav Gill

present a very important topic uh which is going to be cost of truth. So we are having couple of important speakers uh Mary Inman and Zoya. Uh Mary in Man uh has been representing truth tellers uh whistleblowers for a long time and uh uh Zoya is a researcher in Europe who have been researching on people in the space uh visible bler space and uh both of them are going to come up with some

input for regulators. They are going to talk about the human cost of whistleblowers in the A8 trenches. what are the personal risks and systemic failures in tech accountability. But before getting both of them on board for a very interesting goodlong discussion so I have a very important key person um Pav Gil who is who was the visible blower behind wire card who who is going to join us. He myself and Pav did a small interaction so I'm just going to present the uh interaction with

in front of all of you. This is also going to be like a keynote for inviting both Mary and Zoya to talk. Uh and he's going to talk about cost of truthtelling. I have asked few questions. He is going to talk. So let us see. It's going to share my screen.

Okay, just uh let me know in case of uh Okay, can let's do some logistics here. Hope uh my audio should be visible for

all of you. Be hearing audio shared. Hey P, thanks for taking time out to join us in a ethics summit. Welcome. >> Yeah, thanks for having me. Um, you

know, my heartfelt wishes really go to uh Sutir's parents. I wish I could be there in person um to join this summit or even to um just give support uh in any way that I can. Um when I first read about it, you know, I was extremely impacted given that it really hit home. Um what has happened and the impact is is just un undeniably horrible. I mean, I really can only hope that one day we have justice and uh the truth comes to

light. So, thank you for giving me this opportunity to even say a few words um in support of of this whole uh case and AI ethics in general. >> Thank you. So, I think you have spoken about the isolation after exposing cut off by colleagues labeled disgruntled. What psychological tools did you build in that vacuum to avoid being crushed by the machine you challenged? I think it's very difficult because when

you're put in a whistleblowing situation um especially if you are say legal risk compliance and that was me right I was the head of legal for Asia Pacific for a wire card and and a whistleblower actually came to me I was trying to protect this person I gave that person a different name um and then over time because the board found out I was investigating they started coming after me so this is when you know you find yourself as you said like you know isolated because of the sensitive nature of what I came across and the fact that

I was investigating it. Um it's not something I could share with my colleagues or even my my friends outside of the company, you know, legal privilege and all these things. Um so that's where you become isolated and that's where you still need to find the strength to um maintain your resolve in in still doing your job or still um trying to protect whoever came to you in confidence and it's very difficult um especially when the organization is

trying to attack you right uh and in my case you know they tried to kill me at the end of it so then then what do you do I you know, you of course there's a spiritual element to it. You could go into um into faith-based approaches. For me, I had to speak to my mom because my mom's a single parent. I'm the only child. And I thought it was only fair that if anything happened to me, she knew why and and had the background. So, that's the that's the way she got involved. Um, I think once you realize

you're being cut off and label no matter what, the only way to kind of stay sane is to stop expecting sense from broken systems. And this is often the case in companies. So, um, you know, all all all a person can do is is kind of build legal arguments, keep keep receipts and and not waste energy trying to correct every lie. I mean, you lose a lot, but you have to maintain your grip. Awesome. Coming to the systemic flaw, Ward's

fraud thrived because people accepted how things work. When you witness similar normalized compromises in artificial intelligence industry today, for example, bias dismissed as technical debt. What specific structured failure should whistleblowers attack first? I mean the biggest issue in these things is how easily uh responsibility disappears right in AI that's often like dressed up as oh the the LLM the model

did it or we'll fix these biases later I mean no one really wants to own anything is the same trick in wire card um you just dilute accountability so no one takes the fall I mean my only advice is if you are inside and you're seeing these cracks uh that's where you should aim just pin down who signed off what was flagged and and and also obviously what got buried. >> Awesome. About the redemption arc, you now work at confide which is trying to empower

ethical transparency. If you could give one tool to potential AI whistleblowers, something you lack during your crisis, what would it be and why would it rewrite their story? I mean, I think what whistleblowers need isn't like some kind of vault or or solution per se. I mean, they need a mechanism at the end of the day that makes um the wrongdoing or the silence visible, right? A system that logs not

just what you submitted in that sense, but also how it was handled or wasn't handled. U because then that flips the script suddenly. It's not like what it's not a he said, she said situation. It's instead like, okay, here's what was raised. here's who saw it and here's how it was handled or mishandled. So I think that's what I tried to build with the confine platform. Um you know just just something that would uh force accountability in that way from receipt of the matter to resolution. Often times

when you have all these like hotlines and stuff uh it's just focusing on receiving but it's often what happens after the receiving of a report which matters most. Even to whistleblowers you know sometimes people just want to be heard. They want to know that their case is being taken seriously. Uh it's not like just gone into this black hole or or into an abbby somewhere, right? That you have no control over the outcome. You have no idea who's dealing with it and and no visibility over the process. Uh and also then how do you force accountability and visibility as well?

So I think these are the current gaps in the system and hopefully um you know we'll try to fix them um successfully. Awesome. When you see AI visible blowers today risking everything for example like Sushid Balaji challenging the fair use in open AI going to New York Times and writing our research papers. What is that one institutional reform

that would have protected you and must protect many of these new a whistleblowers like such bology? >> Yeah, I mean in my case I was in Singapore. Uh we have no real overarching whistleblowing protections here. Um also the fact that wirefra was in Germany at that time there was no EU whistleblowing directive. Um, and also at the end of the day, like these whistleblowing laws, they only kick in after the damage has been done, right? After someone's been fired, blacklisted and maybe you got a case. Uh, but often

times that's too late. I think real reform uh means protection while you're still inside the company and that's when it actually matters. I mean, you need to have some kind of legal standing to escalate stuff to old management to process to stop the retaliation before it hits, not after. uh otherwise it's just like paperwork after the wreckage. Um so I think we do need uh some avenues externally as well for assistance. I

mean if you think about a lot of these companies that are committing wrongdoing uh that involves a lot of forging of documents and of course in the AI space there deep fakes and and all these things right the same very employers could be creating stuff against you. So, you know, do you have the resources if now they find out you're a threat? Do you have the resources as an individual to challenge all these things to prove otherwise that no, these things are not fake. I wasn't involved in anything that the company's creating stuff against me. Uh most people don't. They don't have

the kind of resources to fight these kinds of battles. So that's where external assistance uh external aid, external protection would really really be of practical use um to the people that need it most. I mean I always I've always wondered why is it if a person was trying to stop a crime in the street that everyone will be like oh my god that's a hero. But then when you do it in a corporate setting you're always viewed in a very different way. But isn't it at the end of the day um

stopping crimes as well just in a different setting. So I think these are things that not only uh organizations but also lawmakers need to think very strong and just people as a whole like let's stop the stigma. Let's reward not only those that stop crimes outside in the street but also within corporations. Last but not least, what is the cost of truthtelling? Um going by your whistleblowing wire card

on the personal and professional price of speaking truth to the power it's like and also what are the lessons you want uh the new whistleblower should take in exposing any billiond dollar frauds and kind of uh you want them to be kind of cautious. >> Well, it's not an easy path. I I guess I've got white hair at a younger age than expected from the process. Um but uh I think you know it's it's you need to look after yourself at the end of the

day. Um and and ask yourself what matters to you and what the outcome is it that you want to achieve because once you go down that pathway, you got to make sure you see it till the end. You know, don't do it halfway. Don't expose yourself, you know, do not come out. uh stay anonymous if you can to the greatest extent possible because like in wire part there was a very rare case of successful whistleblowing. Often times people are exposed during the process and that's when the companies take revenge. You get defamed and you can't

find a job um and your life just takes a turn for the worst. So keep yourself protected, seek legal counsel advice as soon as you can. Um and yeah, just ask yourself, you know, what is it you want to do? What would make you feel safe? What would make your family feel safe? What will make you sleep well at night? Um if the answer to that is just leaving and finding another job or or doing something else, then sure, why not explore that? Um because at the end of the day, it's you know, you got to look

after yourself. Um and that to me is the advice I generally give people. Awesome.