{"id":5716,"date":"2024-01-18T19:29:30","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T19:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/?p=5716"},"modified":"2024-09-11T11:48:34","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T11:48:34","slug":"only-humans-can-make-ai-ethical_011824","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/only-humans-can-make-ai-ethical_011824\/","title":{"rendered":"Only humans can make AI ‘ethical’. Machines make it transparent and accurate"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n We have to stop using \u201cethics\u201d as an excuse to avoid investing in AI. Ethical standards are something enterprise leaders must lay out for their enterprises regardless of technology investments.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For example, what DEI standards are acceptable, and what biases does a company want to set in stone? This dictates how AI can ultimately be governed and also which partners in the ecosystem a company should work with, as most enterprise leaders want to be aligned with other like-minded enterprises. For example, if a company deems it important to create a genuine gender balance within its management ranks, it will likely prefer to work with partners who share and practice those values.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Three in four CEOs believe those with the best GenAI will obtain a competitive advantage. Yet the data \u2013 presented at an IBM event in London covering GenAI and HR \u2013 also shows three in four CEOs are willing to forego the commercial benefits of GenAI over ethical concerns.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n These ethical concerns are regularly cited as the cause of delays in the implementation of AI and GenAI projects. We hear this often from service providers. Many report an uptick in the volume and value of GenAI projects in Q4 of 2023 \u2013 but they also lament how many enterprises are dragging their feet over governance concerns.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But many tech firms and service providers have done themselves no favors by lumping ethics in the same \u2018AI governance\u2019 bucket as accuracy and transparency. In doing so, they have muddied the waters. Ethics, accuracy, transparency, and openness are fundamentally different.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Yet we throw these three together and then wonder why the enterprise stands back, confused.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Transparency and accuracy are<\/span> intrinsically <\/span>machine capabilities.<\/span> AI can be <\/span>accurate<\/span>. AI can be transparent<\/span> (this is more an ambition than a reality currently)<\/span>.<\/span> AI <\/span>can\u2019t<\/span> be <\/span>intrinsically <\/span>ethical <\/span>like<\/span> a car<\/span>, a <\/span>washing machine<\/span>,<\/span> or a gun <\/span>can\u2019t<\/span> be ethical. AI can be no more ethical than it can be <\/span>empathetic <\/span>(<\/span>a<\/span><\/span>utomatically firing out soothing phrases because you have been trained to do so is <\/span><\/span>NOT the same as<\/span> being empathetic<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/span>)<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Ethics are not set in stone either. They <\/span>are <\/span>high<\/span>ly <\/span>context<\/span>–<\/span>dependent<\/span>. <\/span>Context<\/span> is another <\/span>reason why<\/span> leaders<\/span> should separate<\/span> ethics<\/span> from things that can be built into the machine (such as accuracy and transparency). Today\u2019s ethics are <\/span>not the same as<\/span> those of 50 years ago, and no doubt <\/span>not the same as<\/span> those of 50<\/span> years in the future. <\/span>Hard-c<\/span>oding ethics in<\/span>to<\/span> AI <\/span>c<\/span>ould <\/span>prove<\/span> an extr<\/span>aordinari<\/span>ly arrogant and risky thing for any human <\/span>to <\/span>attempt<\/span> today.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As discussed in a <\/span>LinkedIn article in 2018<\/span><\/a>: \u201cThe challenge when trying to set rules for behavior is the huge cultural weight shaping our view of wrong and right. That view varies from culture to culture and through time.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ethics are not for sale. They should not be sold as part of AI governance. The enterprise owns them.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Separating the two reveals ethics is much less an AI concern and much more the C-suite human challenge it always was. Leaders should certainly NOT use ethics as a reason to delay benefiting from the 10-20% boost to business performance our report <\/span>GenAI will re-shape business economics<\/span><\/a>, identifies.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Enterprise leaders should own ethics. They should not leave goal setting and targets for this to third parties \u2013 machine or supplier. Leaders should assess the outcomes of using AI against enterprise-owned targets. But AI can only ever be ethical by rote, meaning ethics is one loop humans must continue to own.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Legal and regulatory obligations aren\u2019t ethical concerns; they are compliance issues. Service providers can and should help with these \u2013 building in accuracy to measure compliance and transparency to show how compliance is met.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Enterprise leaders should separate ethics from legal and regulatory compliance to fast-track their GenAI route for better business performance.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We have to stop using \u201cethics\u201d as an excuse to avoid investing in AI. Ethical standards are something enterprise leaders…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[867,49,1092,1073],"tags":[968,1188,1187,1191,1190,367,619],"organization":[],"ppma_author":[911,19],"class_list":["post-5716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-buyers-sourcing-best-practices","category-genai","category-generative-enterprise","tag-ai","tag-c-suite","tag-david-cushman","tag-enterprise-buyers","tag-ethics","tag-governance","tag-phil-fersht"],"yoast_head":"\nEthical fear-mongering threatens to kill off the commercial gains of GenAI at birth in three-quarters of global enterprises\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Lumping ethics in the same governance bucket as accuracy and transparency has confused enterprise buyers\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\n
AI can\u2019t be intrinsically ethical or empathetic\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Only humans are capable of devising and living by ethics.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Ethics remains the C-suite human concern it always was \u2013 don\u2019t use it as an excuse to delay a tech project\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
The Bottom-Line: <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Separate ethics from legal and regulatory compliance to fast-track your GenAI route to better business performance.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n