The Time to Build Your Ethical AI Strategy is Now

Rapid AI developments in recent weeks and months have captured the attention of the masses, with ethics and responsible AI at the forefront of highly debated conversations. Before the noticeable uptick of generative AI innovations, the White House’s AI Bill of Rights, developed in 2022, offered great guidance for businesses evaluating and adopting AI. Yet, the framework cannot be viewed as the ‘end all, be all’ given the current pace of tech innovation. 

While all eyes are on Washington as government regulation pressures heat up, business leaders must take ownership to understand how to use technology responsibly, sans federal regulations. It starts with building and investing in an ethical AI strategy—something that may initially seem like uncharted territory. By making a plan to design a framework, create a committee, and provide educational opportunities for interested parties, organizations can ensure a seamless path for responsible use. 

Let’s explore the best ways to create a resilient ethical AI strategy and how to embed these processes into your organization.

Establish Your Core Principles When Creating Guidelines

Deciding what principles your organization will adhere to, whether it’s the White House AI Bill of Rights, looking to industry leaders like Google and Microsoft, or designing your own entirely, is an excellent starting point, along with keeping two themes at the forefront: human-centered and socially beneficial. These themes encourage human oversight to mitigate bias, solve unforeseen errors, and ensure the technology benefits the intended end user. When approaching ethical AI within an organization, keeping humans in the loop encourages greater accountability and visibility into the inner workings of the technology, striving to curb bias earlier in the development lifecycle. The responsibility to keep systems fair and equal also requires organizations to reflect and outline what accountability and measures are in place should the technology ever fail internal bias checks and balances.

Additionally, organizations should promote explainable and transparent use, with employees and customers having access to learn about the technology—how it works, what it was trained on, its capabilities and limitations, and more. The information must be available and open for all, allowing individuals to make informed decisions when using systems. Lastly, the framework should follow the principle that all AI use should be secure and safe, meaning there must be policies in line to protect consumer and proprietary data and ensure that systems are secure before use. Outcomes of AI systems are ideally aligned with human values and goals to ensure safety, requiring a regional and cultural approach, as different nations may have differing standards on what constitutes safe use and is in line with cultural norms. 

Once these standards are agreed upon, the next step is creating organizational guidelines. Policies should cover data privacy, product development, and codes of conduct. Here it’s critical to keep employees and customers in mind when crafting the framework to safeguard the customer and proprietary data. A policy centered around use-case review and deciding which scenarios are an acceptable amount of risk for the organization must also be included. Ensure all policies are built on the principles outlined to confidently and ethically engage with AI. 

Building Your Ethical AI Committee

After aligning on core principles and drafting guidelines, forming an ethical AI committee that oversees the creation of new policies, responds to ethical concerns, and updates boards on the current state of the organization’s strategy should be the next priority to evaluate. Consider dividing the committee into two groups: (A) a permanent board of senior leaders who oversee operations and (B) a steering committee composed of employees from different departments in your organization. Whether through nomination or volunteering, involving different teams with more diverse perspectives when addressing ethical considerations. 

Once the committee is formed with a set board and the first round of committee members, meeting regularly is needed. These meetings foster discussions on use-case reviews, new initiatives, and employee or customer feedback, aligning these processes with previously outlined standards. Aligning ways to improve organizational procedures that keep ethical standards in mind should be considered when creating and implementing new policies outside the meetings.

It’s also critical for your committee to provide a way for employees to share feedback and raise concerns they see with the systems so the group can focus on specific matters at each meeting and address them if needed. Whether through an anonymous submission form, town halls, or sharing emails with an alias, allowing employees to communicate with committee members creates trust and brings in new ideas or worries that the group may not have considered. 

Continuing Education Opportunities

As seen with the rapid development of GPT-4, the current pace of innovation is expected to continue at this rate.

With this in mind, offering your organization ongoing educational opportunities equips employees with the tactical and ethical knowledge required for leveraging new AI systems.

Consider offering these opportunities externally, bringing in customers and other industry leaders to these conversations to encourage collaboration and ongoing discussions around advancements in AI and how to interact with new developments. By keeping your employees updated with recent ethical and regulatory updates, your organization can confidently adopt new technologies that employees can safely leverage.

When planning educational opportunities, leaders also must work on identifying tangible initiatives and goals that can upskill the current workforce. As new products and tools emerge and AI becomes more advanced, employees must adapt and find ways to meet new in-demand skills for interacting with these systems. While learning about emerging technology is important, most non-technical roles will not require a high level of knowledge, making efforts around education focused on how to prompt large language models (LLMs) and ethical considerations valuable. Automation will eventually take over mundane tasks, so equipping your workforce with these skills allows them to unlock the full benefits of AI and frees them up to focus on higher-level strategies, such as ethical ones. 

Are You Ready to Start Your Ethical AI Journey?

Recent Senate hearings and discussions around regulation and responsible AI use have increased attention. Drafting and passing legislation can be lengthy, so the best way to protect your data, employees, and customers is to take the initiative and build a resilient ethical strategy.

Creating your ethical strategy doesn’t have to be long or arduous.

Setting standards, forming a committee, ongoing education, and making your framework a living document will set your organization up for success when ethically engaging with AI.

Are you ready?