AI and the Ethical Conundrum

Trust me, I’m AI.

In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, our reliance on AI has skyrocketed. Today more than ever before, we look to AI to help us limit physical interactions, predict the next wave of the pandemic, disinfect our healthcare facilities and even deliver our food. But can we trust it?

In the latest report from the Capgemini Research Institute – AI and the Ethical Conundrum: How organizations can build ethically robust AI systems and gain trust – we surveyed over 800 organizations and 2,900 consumers to get a picture of the state of ethics in AI today. We wanted to understand what organizations can do to move to AI systems that are ethical by design, how they can benefit from doing so, and the consequences if they don’t. We found that while customers are becoming more trusting of AI-enabled interactions, organizations’ progress in ethical dimensions is underwhelming. And this is dangerous because once violated, trust can be difficult to rebuild.

Ethically sound AI requires a strong foundation of leadership, governance, and internal practices around audits, training, and operationalization of ethics. Building on this foundation, organizations have to:

1. Clearly outline the intended purpose of AI systems and assess their overall potential impact
2. Proactively deploy AI to achieve sustainability goals
3. Embed diversity and inclusion principles proactively throughout the lifecycle of AI systems for advancing fairness
4. Enhance transparency with the help of technology tools, humanize the AI experience and ensure human oversight of AI systems
5. Ensure technological robustness of AI systems
6. Empower customers with privacy controls to put them in charge of AI interactions.