Billions are pouring into AI right now, but few people are asking the question that actually matters most: who is writing the cheques and what does that shape about what gets built? Joining me is Deborah Webster, Founder of AmaniLabs. Deborah, welcome to Wall Street to Mena.
Thank you very much for having me.
What gets funded gets built. What does that actually mean for AI right now?
A lot of people do due diligence on the technology and have concerns about the technology. But what often gets forgotten is the people behind the technology making the decisions. There is pressure on founders to be responsible. But people often forget the pressure that investors put on founders — the agendas that investors have, their incentives, their outlook, their belief in the future. When investors invest in AI, they are not just investing in the technology. They are investing in a future that they are actually creating.
What are investors missing right now?
It is almost like getting into a Lamborghini with no brakes and no seatbelts going around a mountain super fast. I think one of the things investors are missing is the sociotechnical nature of the technology. This technology fundamentally shifts and shapes how we live and how we work. And I do not think there is enough thought about what future you actually want and reverse engineering from there. The other thing is the temptation of what I call FOFO — fear of finding out. They are not asking enough of the right questions, especially around whether the people building this technology are responsible enough for the power that comes with it.
What can the social media era teach investors that they are ignoring with AI?
Social media was initially seen as a pretty innocuous play. What investors missed was the incentive structure behind it. You can have a really harmful company but its incentives are encouraging it — and the share price still goes up. History has shown us that markets are not pricing in the risks, the harms to human beings, to society. Enron was shuttered because it defrauded investors. Meta has survived Cambridge Analytica, CSAM, and addiction allegations — and they are still in business. It really begs the question: are the systems we have in place fit for purpose for the age of AI?
What is the biggest red flag in a founder that investors tend to miss?
I look at the gap analysis between what founders say and what they do. They leave a breadcrumb of evidence, and it gives insight into the character of the person — trustworthiness, integrity. You need a safe pair of hands. I do not think investors are doing the right due diligence on that. We know how to do due diligence on financials and market size. But we are not looking at the people behind the technology or whether there are governance structures to limit control.
Is AI ethics actually shaping investor decisions?
There is a lot of talk about it. But there is a fundamental problem in people's minds — they think ethics and profit do not go hand in hand. They think if you are ethical, you lose out. Ethics is about the impacts and consequences of decisions and actions. If you think through what your principles are, what your guardrails are, your go and no-go areas — it actually makes your due diligence much richer. You attract a higher calibre of founder and team. You get more resilience. But until the incentives change, we will unfortunately still see toxic companies and toxic technology.
Your book is called Better Than Your Behaviour. What behaviour is AI amplifying?
It depends on who is using it and who is designing it. It has the ability to amplify the best and the worst in us. On mass, what it is doing is subcontracting decision-making. There is automation bias. The technology has biases, and we have biases. Until we find founders who are designing AI to be aligned with your values and your principles — and until those founders get the right attention from investors — we will keep seeing what gets funded get built rather than what should get built.
Thank you so much for being with us.
Thank you very much for having me.
