Artificial Intelligence Ethics and Dangers: How to Handle AI Concerns

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers numerous benefits in a wide range of industries. However, AI technology isn’t perfect, as it can be prone to making errors. These potential mistakes pose significant concerns, such as police departments using facial recognition technology. The dangers of AI can result in an innocent person being arrested for a crime they didn’t commit.

Understanding how to eliminate artificial intelligence problems is essential before it’s widely used in law enforcement or other industries. The dangers of artificial intelligence can also lead to liability concerns for creating a new product without proper testing.

Potential Problems with Artificial Intelligence

AI ethical issues are wide-ranging, as an unaccountable algorithm can build malfunctioning medical devices or make facial recognition mistakes that put an innocent person in jail. AI risks also include the elimination of well-paying jobs, which makes it even more challenging for people to find work in a specific field. All of these AI ethical issues need to be analyzed to help eliminate these problems before AI is widely used throughout society.

Why You Need an AI Ethics Board

One way to counteract AI problems is to create an ethics board that will govern this innovative technology. An AI ethics board can prevent many of the dangers of AI, which is essential in fully utilizing this technology. Each organization needs to understand AI risks before attempting to implement this technology within their industry.

Many of the dangers of using AI technology is the ability for it to make decisions without the need for human intervention. Creating an AI ethics board to govern the use of AI technology is critical in reducing these risks to ensure everything is working at an optimal level without causing additional problems related to employee privacy, equality, or jobs.

Public mechanisms are available to limit the dangers of AI, but these tools aren’t adequate in providing the best protection. For example, the needs of the market encourage companies to create AI technology for facial recognition or surveillance, but these companies haven’t made the same amount of effort and commitment for ethical use. Regulators do not have knowledge or experience about AI to offer sufficient oversight, which creates even more artificial intelligence concerns.

Many AI solution developers remain concerned about the misuse of this technology once it’s available in the market due to the lack of oversight. The use of advanced technology designed to protect communities can pose significant risks to the same communities due to errors and a lack of governance.

Applications of artificial intelligence can create more problems in underrepresented communities, as understanding how to overcome these risks is crucial before this technology is widely used.

An External Board Committed to Artificial Intelligence Ethics

Axon is a technology provider that works with law enforcement agencies. This company created an external ethics board focused on eliminating AI mistakes to keep the public protected. Using an external board resulted in more transparency, representation, and accountability throughout the entire development process of AI technology.

Here are a few of the main lessons learned by creating an external oversight board.

More Transparency

Always remaining transparent with your AI ethics board about upcoming projects and your AI roadmap is a good idea to make sure everyone is on the same page with each other. An uninformed board is dangerous due to the lack of information to make confident decisions on new projects. Staying transparent will help you build credibility and increase the chance of maintaining board members for the long-term.

Greater Representation

Understanding the difference between the primary customers of your product and the consumers is essential in providing greater representation. For example, a law enforcement agency may be your customer for policing technology, but each person within that community is the consumer due to the direct impact of using AI technology.

Knowing your consumers is essential in providing the necessary oversight to understand how AI technology will impact each person. Realizing AI ethical issues impacting consumers can help you filter out inadequate AI product proposals before reaching the market.

Accountability

Once a board is finished with recommendations, the next process is for senior members to respond to them publicly. A public response shows that an organization is committed to a project and will remain accountable. Axon also made additional steps to help empower the AI ethics board by following a few key strategies.

1) Choose Effective Members

Finding the right members for your board is critical to its success. You will need to make sure the board remains independent by not including any employees of your business. Creating a diverse board is also a good idea in helping you make challenging decisions. Possible members from your board can come from a wide range of industries, such as academics, experts in machine learning, or practitioners related to your industry.

2) Maintain Transparent Feedback

Keeping a few rules in mind is a good idea to ensure your board remains effective. These rules include providing total access to information, such as the formula behind algorithms, while also giving the board the freedom to control its agenda. Not interfering with recommendations from the board is also critical in maintaining independence. Axon maintained transparency by allowing its board to publish recommendations on a university website instead of using the company’s site.

3) Stay Organized for Accountability

Staying organized for accountability is important in avoiding AI ethical issues. An AI development team needs the flexibility to reach out to the ethics board at any time to ensure trust among each party. Accountability also makes it possible to handle any potential ethical concerns, such as whistleblower complaints. Using an AI ethics board for accountability is a great way to gain a competitive edge while also improving business resilience to help make your company even more attractive to talent.