Artificial intelligence (AI) is being called the next industrial revolution because it will completely transform the workforce. The rapid development of AI, from being a well-known concept to being integrated into our day-to-day lives through programs like ChatGPT, has taken place rapidly over the past few years.
A Statista report on artificial intelligence in the US found that the AI market is projected to reach $50.16 billion in 2024 and be worth $223.70 billion by 2030. Today, a majority of companies now use AI as an important part of their business operations. As outlined in our article on the Top Four Ways Small Businesses Can Benefit from AI and Robotics, it is not just large conglomerates that are able to utilize AI; many small enterprises use it to their advantage. While the accessibility of AI is seen as a positive, there is also a huge concern over the ethical usage of AI and how it will be governed to prevent bad practices. Despite the integration of AI into the modern world, we are still at the beginning of the technology.
Wide Spread Adoption of AI in Business
Although in its infancy, many US businesses are integrating AI into their business practices. As reported by Forbes, “60 percent of organizations with reported AI adoption are using gen AI,” and “overall AI adoption remains steady at around 55 percent.” Generation AI (gen AI) is allowing businesses to automate more complex tasks as it can build algorithms that can create realistic content, including text, images, and audio, based on their training data. In a May 2024 article, Deepak Gupta outlined how generation AI is transforming various industries, including e-commerce, healthcare, banking, and manufacturing. While AI is helping these industries improve their operational efficiency with a reduced need for human interaction, there are also examples of unethical AI practices that make the governance of AI highly important.
Examples of Unethical AI
As the world comes to terms with implementing AI, stories are emerging about how the technology is being used unethically or leading to poor decisions due to a lack of regulation. Ethical concerns for AI include privacy, surveillance, bias, and discrimination. A famous example was the $365,000 settlement age discrimination case against US company iTutorGroup, where, in order to speed up hiring, the algorithm automatically discarded the resumes of women over 55 and men over 60. In marketing, businesses are able to use AI to create personalized marketing that exploits consumers’ vulnerabilities, leading them to buy items that they do not need or that are even harmful to them. Many businesses are also unwilling to be transparent, which gives them an unfair advantage over consumers who are unaware of how much their habits are being monitored and influenced.
How Businesses Can Create Ethical AI Practices.
A post on MongoDB about artificial intelligence highlights how it is “important to set rules and regulations and address the ethical considerations so that AI systems are used fairly, transparently, and for the right purpose.” One way companies can implement ethical practices and good governance is by creating a dedicated AI ethics and governance team. The team will be able to monitor how AI is used, ensure that they follow regulatory requirements, and adjust the company’s AI practices to react to and prevent potential issues connected to data and privacy. They will also be able to educate and upskill members of the team to create a culture of accountability around the use of AI.
Businesses must also be transparent with their customers, with Rob Thomas, senior vice president of software and chief commercial officer at IBM, stressing that companies must be honest in how they use AI. Thomas argues the importance of transparency in how AI is being built and where the data comes from. This is why IBM has made watsonx.governance, which helps businesses monitor and manage their AI activities as well as employ software automation to “mitigate risk, manage regulatory requirements, and address ethical concerns.” The best way to ensure good governance of AI is to use tools that are designed to flag unethical practices.
Currently, there are no federal bill laws for AI regulation, although many states have implemented AI legislation. The government has issued a blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, but it is non-binding. This makes ethical AI usage and governance extremely important to prevent corporations and individuals from using it for malicious purposes. AI may be in its infancy, but in many ways, humans are already behind if they don’t tackle the issues of unethical AI quickly enough.
