This week on Ethical Voices, Kristin Amico, a writer, editor, content strategist, and the most traveled person I know discusses a number of important ethics issues, including:
- Why most ethics failures don’t start with scandals
- What the “Wild West” of AI really looks like inside organizations under pressure to perform
- How fear, job insecurity, and “do more with less” environments quietly undermine ethical decision-making
- Why mentorship is the most effective ethics safeguard for junior staff
Tell us more about yourself and your career.
I started out in a traditional journalism career. I went to Emerson College. I got way back when, a print journalism degree. I ended up in TV news for a few years, and then I pivoted to mostly marketing, corporate communications and public relations.
I found myself in high tech PR. Where I’ve stayed for more than 20 years now. I’ve worked my way through different areas of corporate marketing, typically within tech companies. But I’ve been extremely lucky that I’ve also had some time and space in my life to work on travel writing. A few years ago, I quit my agency job, sold all my belongings and spent about two years, traveling mostly with a 65-liter backpack in Europe and India.
I had the opportunity to write some guidebooks to contribute to some travel magazines. I started travel blog, and kind of lived out that life until the pandemic sent me back to corporate comm, marketing and PR.
I loved watching your journeys and I still remember the Chernobyl post.
What is the most difficult ethical challenge you ever confronted at work?
Thankfully I’ve never been in a position where I had a red flag kind of issue that you just knew was going to break your career or get you arrested.
What I’ve seen instead is a multitude of little transgressions. I’ve worked in-house at tech companies; I’ve worked for different agencies. And what I’ve seen is kind of an escalation of little things that start out completely normal, and then you don’t quite know what to do. Somebody doesn’t know the right answer, and that tumbles into a situation where you could not be making the best decision.
What I have seen, especially in agencies, is if you’re on a kind of hiring binge and hire three, four or five new AEs – some of them have worked in PR before. Some of them come from editorial backgrounds, and a lot of times they’re thrust into this situation where they’re great writers, they’re great communicators. They’re really good at asking questions, but then they’re thrust into these client-facing roles without a ton of guidance. This is where I’ve seen those issues come up, because sometimes somebody might know what they think the answer is, but they’re too scared to ask that question. They’re too scared to say no.
People aren’t always comfortable saying no. One of the things I’ve tried to do as a manager and mentor is to sit down and have a coffee meeting with somebody at least once a month and say, what are, what challenges are you facing?
Let’s talk about areas where you have a hard time pushing back, or you feel uncomfortable. When people feel empowered to say no or go to someone they trust, you can cut off some of these micro transgressions before they become larger.
What ethical issues have you seen around AI?
Right now, I don’t think people understand. They don’t quite understand what guardrails exist.
Are there any guardrails in our instance? Because it’s like Wild West and it’s funny because clients I work with, whether it’s the executive team or the board, they’re getting directives – you must use AI in your business. They don’t always know what they’re going to use AI for or how to use AI, but they know at the end of the year they have to give an executive presentation that shows either we’ve implemented this, or we’re in the process of implementing these tools that will, eventually, cut costs, reduce labor, and increase efficiency. They know what they’re supposed to be doing with AI, but they’re not quite sure what tools to use or how to best effectively implement these tools. So, they’re just trying everything.
I’ve counseled the client. I said, “Is this private? Do you even know if what you’re putting into the system is private? Is customer data getting in there?”
The media loves surveys. Everybody wants data and we can crunch those numbers, but is any of this anonymized? People don’t know the answer. They’re under such pressure to show positive forward motion that they’re not sure what the rules are, and they don’t want to be the one to ask the question, right?
Because they don’t want to seem as if, oh, we’re against AI. Adults need to get into a room and have a conversation about what exists, what guardrails are in place, and what are the challenges we could face if we proceed with this.
I agree with you a hundred percent. It must be a cross-functional team of adults because everybody has their own blinders and biases. And what I also say is, you need to start looking at the industry best practices because there are things you may not even consider.
Right now, it’s definitely the Wild West of AI. There are these two different trains of thought, some companies want to be very pro AI and show that they’re using it. So, they’ll come out and say, we used AI to create this. What I’ve found is maybe junior team members are a little afraid. They don’t want to seem as if they’re not doing their job or they’re taking a shortcut. Or maybe if they use AI, maybe they’re in a position that can easily be cut.
So, they might be less likely to raise their hand and say, we used AI for this. But then as it comes down to did you fact check it? Did you ask it to cite sources? Did you then go and click through to make sure those sources actually exist? We’ve all seen public instances where someone most likely used AI and showed sources that, after 10 minutes of research, were found not to exist at all.
This is why I focus a lot on mentoring and training younger staff members. Because if you don’t have a team that feels completely empowered to raise their hand and be direct about what they’re doing and be open to having that conversation, this is where you’re going to get into the messy issues that turn into, you no longer have a Saturday or a Sunday.
And I’d love to avoid that.
Mentoring is so essential, particularly with junior staff. One a year is not enough.
You should have a conversation at least once a month where you’re not talking about action items for a client. You’re not talking about a campaign. You sit down and talk about what their life is like, what challenges they’re having, but also get them to talk about where they’re succeeding, because then they’re gonna feel more comfortable talking to you, when they actually do have a real problem.
Beyond the AI discussion, are there any other key ethics challenges you’re seeing for today or tomorrow?
I think with the workforce issues we’re having, we’re trying to do more with less. Some of that is related to AI tools. There’s a sense of fear. Nobody knows if their job is safe if you are in this pressure cooker environment. Are you in a place where you’re going to make the best decisions? Now, this is an issue across every part of the organization. But in comms, that’s where it usually becomes public-facing first. We need to treat people like people and understand that if your people don’t feel safe or they feel under pressure, they’re gonna make terrible decisions.
How do we as managers help people overcome their fears?
When I’ve worked in-house one of the things I tried to do was lead by example, by asking the hard questions in something like an all-hands meeting. Nobody wants to raise their hand and ask the elephant in the room question.
Coworkers would joke with me. I’d get, IM messages or slack messages. Kristen, somebody has to ask the question. Being in my fifties now, I’m more comfortable being the person to ask the uncomfortable question. If they see that there’s someone in the organization who’s willing to stand up and raise their hand, I think they’re more comfortable coming to you and talking about actual issues that exist.
You can go beneath surface level. But you’ve got to be in an environment where people feel like they’re not being judged, where they can ask questions and get real answers. And I think part of it from a corporate perspective; you’re in these monthly or quarterly all hands meetings and executives don’t always want to be completely transparent. But you have to be at least transparent enough that their staff feels like, oh, we’re all on the same page here.
Somebody has to be the uncomfortable adult in the room. When people are afraid, they act differently than when they think they can raise an issue and have a truthful conversation about it.
You might not always get the answers. You might get an answer like, we’ll talk about this in a week, or, I don’t know right now, but you have to at least not pretend that issues do not exist.
At a previous company there were issues that were very clear to everybody, but nobody wanted to address them. In that situation, it’s like you’re all kind of running around chasing your tails. Nobody knows what to do. So again, do you make terrible decisions, or do you make a decision that might be fine in the very short term, but in the long term it is going to really come back to bite you.
I’ve had so many managers and VPs saying, just do the thing and ask for forgiveness later.
And that’s great when you are in a time constraint, right? Like, I have to make this decision now, however. Giving that piece of advice, you also have to be very careful. Who are you telling to just make decisions on the spot to, are you saying that to someone who has experience?
It’s not, whether this person is smart or not smart, it’s just do they have the context to make this decision in a way that won’t hurt the company, won’t hurt the reputation, that won’t come out as a terrible PR story that you’re now doing crisis communications for.
I just wish more people would get in a room together.
You can’t have a junior staff member do it, that is the hill I will die on. Because then you get to say, oh, I didn’t know it was a junior staff member. It was the intern’s fault, right?
This is where I think being an older person now. I joke with friends, I was like, I’m unemployable because I will be the person to stand up and say, no, the buck stops with me. There’s no way to say, oh, it was an accident. It was the intern’s fault. Yeah. When your senior-level person does something and there’s a paper trail, there’s no way to say, oh, we didn’t know.
It’s a good hill.
What’s the best piece of ethics advice you ever received?
I came from journalism, so I was used to asking questions.
A million years ago, we were talking about how do you get the story you want? Don’t ask the question unless you know the answer. That is the worst piece of advice. Because there are so many things we don’t know. There’s the known unknown and the unknown unknown.
Technology is moving crazy fast. Corporate decisions are moving crazy fast. So, there are so many things that we probably don’t know. My piece of advice is always ask the question.
Is there anything else you wanted to highlight that I didn’t ask you?
I just want everybody to feel safe in a situation and feel like they can make a decision they can live with. If you can’t live with that decision, say no or walk away, you’re never going to regret getting yourself out of a bad situation before it happens.
Listen to the full interview with bonus content here
- Somebody Has to Ask the Question: Mentorship, AI, and Ethical Courage - January 5, 2026
- Why Communicators Deserve the Same Privilege as Lawyers - October 20, 2025
- Lessons from a PR Legend: Dick Martin on Ethics, Accountability, and Finding the Hard Truths - August 4, 2025
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