David Knott 16/07/2026 David Knott 16/07/2026

Warning: philosophers at work

I’ve bumped into a couple of conversations about philosophy this week. The first was in the Economist, in an article which claimed that philosophy graduates may have a better chance of getting hired then computer science graduates, especially by AI companies. It’s not clear whether those philosophy graduates are expected to teach the models, coach the executives, or advise the developers, but it’s nice that they have jobs.

On the face of it, I should feel positive about this development. For the last ten years, since AI (in its pre-generative, pre-transformer incarnation) started to be used in the companies I was working for, especially in data-rich decision making use cases, such as fraud and financial crime detection and customer needs analysis, I have believed that AI ethics was an urgent problem.

David Knott 11/06/2026 David Knott 11/06/2026

Embrace all the fundamentals, of software, of models - and of humans

I sometimes try to persuade business leaders that they should get to grips with the fundamentals of the technology they depend on. This often manifests as an exhortation to learn to code, not because I think they will be great coders (although they might be) or because we need more coders (although we do), but because engaging with the practical reality of building and running systems is the best antidote to the confusion, bewilderment and mystification that surrounds technology. And because they might make better choices about technology partnerships, investment, organisation, sourcing and strategy if they knew more about how it all worked.

For most of my career, this advice has been focused on traditional software: procedural code, written line by line by humans. However, as enterprises are attempting to figure out how to make effective use of AI, I think it is necessary for leaders to get to grips with the fundamentals of three types of work that goes on in their organisations: that carried out by software, that carried out by models, and that carried out by humans. I regularly see people confusing the characteristics of these three types of work, for example, claiming that an AI model is ‘like an intern’, or that there is no more need for a code base of software because AI will either make all the necessary decisions or generate all of the necessary code on demand.

David Knott 09/04/2026 David Knott 09/04/2026

Leading with integrity: ethics does not equal compliance

This is the most important programme in the world because the regulator says so.

It’s a regular ritual in any large corporation: reviewing the proposed change portfolio for the coming year. The list of proposals is always longer than the company can afford, and, even if it could afford to do everything, there are only so many things it can do. Naturally, everyone proposing a change programme tries to make it sound as if it is more vital than all of the others: it is the one thing that will cut costs, boost revenue or protect the organisation from existential threats.

In regulated industries, such as finance, utilities and healthcare, one of the strongest justifications offered is compliance. The idea is that, if the change is required by law or regulation, the company is obliged to do it: there is no choice.

David Knott 04/05/2023 David Knott 04/05/2023

What do I believe about enterprise technology?

Last week, I wrote about three things that I learnt in my time at Boston Consulting Group. One of those things was the practice of conducting belief audits: figuring out what you believe and what your true goals are. This practice is particularly important when considering major change: if you don’t know what you are really aiming for, then how are you going to achieve it?

I’m moving to a new role, so it seems like a good time to conduct a personal belief audit. There are inherent beliefs that I’ve acquired in a long career in technology (note that I use the term technology in this article to mean the broad field of computing: I realise that there have been many other technologies since the earliest days of stone tools - but that’s the way we use the word these days - and, unfortunately, if you say Information Technology or IT, that makes people still think that you have come to fix the printer), but I’m not sure that I have ever attempted to write them all (or at least the most important ones) down. Here goes . . .

David Knott 12/01/2023 David Knott 12/01/2023

In the wonderland of new technology, let’s be curiouser and curiouser

What can Aristotle, a philosopher from the 4th century BCE, teach us about technology that was released in 2022?

Well, he wrote about techne, practical skill, the term that gives technology its name. However, I think that we can learn more today from what he wrote about arete, or virtue.

Aristotle’s conception of virtue experienced a renaissance in the 20th and 21st centuries, and many better people than me have written many words on the topic. For our purposes, though, we can understand virtue simply as a habit of thought and behaviour of which we approve, which forms part of a flourishing life, and which is self-reinforcing: the practice of virtue makes us virtuous. Virtues include attributes such as courage, honesty and generosity, and are opposed by vices such as cowardice, dishonesty and miserliness. Aristotle also suggested that vices are extremes, and that virtues are the mean that navigates between them. For example, generosity is the mean between being a miser and being a spendthrift.

David Knott 15/07/2021 David Knott 15/07/2021

Servant leadership for cloud transformation (or any other transformation)

What character traits do you need to lead Cloud transformation? Which should you avoid?

I recently wrote a series of blog posts about seven key roles for Cloud transformation - or for any other large scale, technology enabled transformation. That prompted me to ask myself a question: how should leaders behave when they fill these roles? I believe that leadership requires more than the competent execution of a set of tasks and responsibilities: it requires the adoption and practice of a set of behaviours which will make your transformation successful - and make the experience rewarding and fulfilling for the people in the team.

When asking questions about behaviour, my philosophical background leads me to Aristotle’s theory of the virtues. In Aristotle’s philosophy (and much philosophy which has come after), virtues are behaviours which we value, whose practice is self-reinforcing (the more often we are honest, the more honesty becomes a habit), whereas vices are self-reinforcing behaviours which we don’t value (if we lie frequently it is hard to stop).

David Knott 02/04/2020 David Knott 02/04/2020

Philosophy for architects: which habits will you make and which habits will you break?

Many of us will be working in unusual circumstances for extended periods of time. We will be at home rather than in the office. We will see more of our family than our colleagues. When we do see our colleagues, it will be by video rather than in person. (And, of course, if we are fortunate enough to be healthy, housed and in work, we will learn to be grateful for those things that we normally take for granted.)

As we adjust to this new way of life, we will form habits. We will (or will not) find ways to exercise. We will (or will not) find time to talk to people we wouldn’t otherwise see. We will (or will not) let our frustration and impatience with technology leak through into our behaviour. We will (or will not) continuously raid the cupboard for snacks.

Ethics, the philosophy of morals, contains some ideas about habits which might be useful to us as we live through these strange times. To understand these ideas, though, we must begin with some basics.

David Knott 05/03/2020 David Knott 05/03/2020

Philosophy for architects: where did all those reasons come from?

Let’s do some philosophy!

When people notice that I have a PhD in philosophy, specialising in ethics, they often ask me how I apply it in my day job. Up until a few years back, the honest answer was that I didn’t: I tried to behave ethically, like everybody else, but that was just normal behaviour, not an attempt to do philosophy at work. That has changed following the growth of commercially useful artifical intelligence: interest in AI ethics has brought philosophy into the workplace. I hope that it has shown that philosophy does not have to be an obscure, impenetrable discipline: at its best, the aim of philosophy is to answer hard and important questions that matter to everybody.

So, now that philosophy has come to the office, let’s see if we can put it to work. We can start by seeing if when we need to make a decision, but people just can’t agree with each other. (I realise that philosophy is not for everybody: if it’s not for you, skip to the TL;DR non-philosophical punchline at the end.)

David Knott 11/04/2019 David Knott 11/04/2019

AI ethics: one FAQ, two concerns and a hope

In the last two weeks, I was honoured to be invited to sit on two panels on the topic of AI ethics and responsiblity, one as part of a training course within HSBC, and one as part of the Google Next 2019 conference.

I was asked a similar question in both panels, which went something like this: how does the combination of my academic background in ethics and my professional background in enterprise technology shape my perspective on AI ethics?

I’ve been asked this question often enough for it to count as an FAQ, so I thought it might be helpful to share my answer here.

Before I share it, though, I have to give one big caveat. Studying philosophy and attempting to keep up with the latest developments in technology teach me both humility and the depths of my ignorance, so I am aware that any thoughts I share here are provisional, personal and have a strong likelihood of being wrong.