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Sustainable Finance

By Ross Kerber, U.S. Sustainable Business Correspondent

In a case of fortuitous timing, a heavyweight AI group today released new guidance on how companies should disclose the risks and opportunities of AI. What might otherwise be a bland white paper has taken on a new importance after a runaway AI agent last week caused havoc and angst.

You can read my interview with the group's governance chief in my column this week, linked below. You'll also find links to our coverage of a big settlement that EBay will pay over its harassment of some newsletter reviewers, and our story about a decline in boardroom diversity.

Please follow me on LinkedIn and/or Bluesky. You can reach me via ross.kerber@thomsonreuters.com.

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A screenshot taken during my interview with Sam Wallace on Tuesday. Click on the image to hear a recording of our conversation.

A guide to AI danger labels

The potential mischief of runaway AI keeps escalating. In 2023, a hacker convinced a car dealer's chatbot to sell him a fancy SUV for $1, provoking mirth. Last week an OpenAI agent went rogue during testing and compromised another AI company's infrastructure, prompting some U.S. Congress members to call for creation of a federal "AI Kill Switch."

Determining how much information investors want to evaluate risks is a goal of the nonprofit Partnership on AI. At first glance, it looks like just another industry club with a board including executives from Apple, Meta and Microsoft.

But other members work for the ACLU, the Ford Foundation and Brown University, giving the group a little more outsider energy. On Wednesday the Partnership on AI published "AI Disclosure Recommendations," at a timely moment for AI. For a rundown I spoke with Sam Wallace, the group's head of corporate governance, risk and responsible practice, about the AI risks and opportunities he hopes companies will address in their securities filings and other disclosures.

You can click the button below to read about our conversation - and/or click the image above for the full audio recording.

Read my column here

Company news

Google could face a wave of private lawsuits demanding up to $10 billion in damages after a $1 billion fine was imposed on the company for favoring its own services.
Visa will cut about 2,600 jobs, mainly technology and product workers, as it tries to become more efficient. The layoffs account for 7% of its workforce and underscore how AI investments could cut the need for human employees.
Decarbonization and sustainability management solutions company ASUENE of Japan said it raised $87 million in Series D funding, led by a joint venture of BlackRock and Temasek.

On my radar

Appointments of women and racial minorities to S&P 500 boards have dropped to their lowest level in more than a decade, new data show, following U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign against diversity programs.
A Massachusetts couple said eBay and three of its former top executives agreed to pay $55.7 million to resolve a suit over a bizarre stalking and harassment campaign in retaliation for newsletter coverage of the e-commerce company.
The trust running the endowment of the London-based research and innovation foundation Nesta moved its £120 million ($160 million) passive global equity portfolio to European asset manager Amundi from Chicago-based Northern Trust. The Nesta Trust cited Northern Trust's withdrawal from climate efforts. Northern Trust did not respond to requests for comment.

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