Have you ever wondered why artificial intelligence is famous and infamous at the same time? Artificial Intelligence, better known as AI, is not an exceptionally recent phenomenon but has captured the imagination of people all over the world and has become an integral part of our lives today. Across different industries, AI has brought an impactful influx of efficiency into their functioning, and business organizations and their operations are deeply benefiting from it. AI makes the operational value of business processes simple with limited resources.
A report released by the CompTia Community suggests that 34% of businesses leverage AI and another 42% are exploring it to its depths. However, as this powerful tool has been taking over different aspects of business, reshaping, redefining, and revolutionizing it constantly, why does it become necessary to raise questions on its ethicality?
““When it comes to the ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI), it is an important term where the moral aspect guides how we develop and deploy this powerful technology across different industries”
– Matheen Haneef, Founder & CEO, Smart Tools AI
Let us understand why the ethical implication of artificial intelligence is an inevitable subject and the challenges it poses to users in today’s context.
AI and its Ethical Implications
AI is a technological solution like machines/bots that can simulate and process like human intelligence. Currently, AI has been developed to a stage where it can provide more efficiency than what human labor can offer. This taking over of human abilities and behaviors is naturally frowned upon and this AI surge is questioned.
When we say AI augments human intelligence, it certainly comes with a sense of morality. To ensure that the technology we develop must not inadvertently reciprocate harm to human behavior, values, and social norms, ethical considerations in AI are crucial and they must align with the mentioned attributes.
“If we’re not concerned with morality in AI, then we could potentially be working against the technology at some point, as our morals clash with the system. This could prove to be problematic, if not lethal”.
– Daivat Dholakia, VP of Operations, Essenvia
Significance of Ethics in AI
Why is ethics a buzzword when it comes to AI? AI and its implications have been studied for a long time. With its exponential growth and influence in multiple aspects, AI’s development, induction, and integration of its technologies into society, critics have often pointed to the areas of risks such as –
- Ethical risks concerning consumer privacy
- Acquisition and management of consent
- Consequences of AI-driven decisions
- Ensuring ethical deployment of AI
Ethical implications of artificial intelligence shed light on the ethical challenges, dilemmas, and consequences that arise with the implementation of AI solutions. This focuses on the use and impact AI has on decision-making and how it catalyzes an ethical business environment.
“With Generative AI, ethics is going to be more important than ever. Unlike search engines, or social media platforms that show a wide variety of content, generative AI systems typically give one answer. Even running the same prompt several times often yields very familiar answers. These answers are delivered as if they are ‘truth’. This makes the generative AI system creator the ‘arbitrator’ of truth, but society rarely agrees on what the truth is”.
– Andrew Gamino-Cheong, CTO and Co-Founder of Trustible
AI offers several advantages to processes and optimizes them with efficiency. It automates manual tasks enabling easy conduction, and supports easy customer servicing. However, factors like transparency, fairness, accountability, etc. determine the ethicality of artificial intelligence in business. Numerous factors have to be considered when using AI ensuring that the systems value human rights as well as maintain and safeguard user privacy. A study titled “Ethics in the Age of AI” revealed that 82% of the respondents believe that ethics is an important aspect of AI.
Origin and Development of Ethical Implications in AI
With the fast-paced advancements in AI technologies, the idea of ethical implications was established in the field of AI ethics. The initial discourse majorly focused on detecting and addressing the ethical challenges emerging with machine intelligence. This stimulated the development of ethical guidelines, the emergence of research institutes solely studying AI ethics, and the inclusion of ethical considerations in AI policy frameworks.
“Sure, AI has incredible potential to do good, but it also has the power to harm if not guided by ethical principles. We need to ensure that it’s used responsibly, with transparency, fairness, and human oversight”
– Kristin LaSalle, Co-Founder of Spinnr Inc.
Ethical Challenges of AI
Socioeconomic Impact of Job Displacement
Jobs can be taken over by automation assisted by AI in certain industries. This may lead to unemployment and income inequality gravely impacting the socioeconomic structure. This is where ethical implications and questions gain relevance. Questions are raised about the government’s role and responsibilities in tackling this issue.
Threat to Moral Reasoning
Traditionally, important business decisions were made by humans. However, AI has outgrown human capabilities being proficient enough to make business decisions. This might lead to the diminishing of human thinking.
Ethics Coding Challenge
Transcribing ethics into rules for AI systems to decode can be difficult. Decisions can be only taken based on these rules that are coded. Human values, morals, and ethics are layered and complicated making it difficult to convert them into codes.
Lack of Transparency and Accountability
There is no proper accountability if something happens out of the ideal framework. This gets even worse with the involvement of complex algorithms. Most of the AI’s systems functionality is unknown and lacks transparency, making it difficult to manage.
Today, from merely identifying the risks of AI, the scope of the study has evolved to address and develop change-inducing solutions and ways to practice them. This new discourse has made it possible to leverage AI, that is ethically bound and gives the users safety.
Ethics is practiced in these two ways –
- Integration of ethical guidelines with AI systems
- Development of AI systems that prioritize ethical decision-making
Pros and Cons of Ethical Implications of AI
Pros
Ethical Decision Support
Having an understanding of the ethical implications helps develop AI technologies that are based on ethical principles. Therefore, the implementation of AI is grounded in important ethical principles. This will ensure responsible usage and decision-making.
Improved Trust and Transparency
When ethical implications are taken care of, AI technology is rightfully used to boost public openness, trust, and transparency, enabling ethical conduct.
Cons
Algorithmic Bias and Discrimination
Even though ethics is practiced with the implementation and usage, AI systems can still show biases. Showing bias can lead to discrimination in outcomes that may give disproportionate outcomes.
Ethical Framework Complexity
When ethical implications are implemented, there is a high chance that it can alter the existing algorithm setup, validation, and operationalization.
“By providing importance for ethics in AI development and deployment, it will be easy to build trust with users and stakeholders. This may improve innovation, and eventually create a more equitable and sustainable future”
– Matheen Haneef, Founder & CEO, Smart Tools AI
Final Thoughts
As AI can provide impeccable solutions that elevate the efficiency of businesses, it is high time we understand the key role of ethics in artificial intelligence, even with its implemental limitations.
“Business Leaders must genuinely consider the ethical aspects of their actions, and as democratic citizens, we must educate ourselves about technology and its social and ethical implications. We need to dictate ourselves to define the role we want AI to play in our lives. Integrating ethics into AI is not just a choice, it’s our responsibility to secure a sustainable future”
– Sivaram Subramaniam, VP of Sales, Cavintek
It becomes important for the business organization and other users to decipher ways to ethically, morally, and responsibly benefit from its solutions. They must be able to ensure fundamental values like transparency, fairness, and accountability, thus bringing authenticity to the outputs generated. AI in businesses must safeguard human and social values.
