How will artificial intelligence reshape ethics in the enterprise?

The pressure to digitally transform has catalysed the employment of artificial intelligence (AI) in industries across the globe. Alongside automating tasks and improving productivity, however, AI will also undoubtedly reshape ethics.

How will AI reshape ethics in the enterprise?

This year alone, PwC predicts that 20% of US organisations will implement AI enterprise-wide. Meanwhile, a recent report from London venture capital firm MMC ventures discovered that AI adoption has tripled over the past 12 months.

For many companies, AI thus represents an exciting digital challenge that will ultimately improve business. Nevertheless, users are calling for comprehensive guidelines that address ethical algorithms, transparency, anti-trust, and workforce retention.

In order to address this, an increasing number of enterprises are implementing ethics boards or chief ethics officers. PwC observes that this is a particularly encouraging trend, which the firm expects to accelerate.

Ethical AI will accelerate

At present, it is impossible to ignore the ethical implications inherent to AI and its associated technologies. Scott Zoldi, Chief Analytics Officer at FICO, predicts that ethical AI will be the “tech industry’s biggest development in 2019.”

Ethical AI ultimately entails removing bias from the datasets that power algorithms. "It's really important you do all the necessary tests in order to avoid bias and increase the accuracy of your results," Managing Director of Brainpool AI Kasia Borowska told EM360.

However, a chapter in the Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence stresses that general AI algorithms may require new forms of artificial ethical considerations. For example, AIs that possess “sufficiently advanced mental states” could achieve moral status or even personhood.

Despite this uncertainty, Daniel Hulme, CEO of Satalia, told us that this is an "extremely exciting time for humanity," as we must now embed ethical behaviours into these systems. In effect, policymakers and organisations alike must now endeavour to agree on a code of ethical behaviours.

Interested in ethical AI? Listen to our podcast with Kasia Borowska, Managing Director at Brainpool AI, or check out our discussion with Daniel Hulme, CEO of Satalia