Compliments of our colleague Imran Syed, Legal Director, IPT London.
As a new era of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies emerges, companies in almost every industry are exploring how they can use AI to drive improvements to their business. After all, the commercial gains are tantalizing, offering businesses a better understanding of their operations and their customers than ever before, as well opportunities for significant cost reduction and quality improvement.
Yet harnessing the benefits of these transformative technologies does not come without risk, particularly when compared with the risks generated by more human modes of failure. Errors in AI solutions can scale more quickly. AI may exhibit bias that discriminates against certain classes of individuals. Indeed, a broad array of ethical considerations may arise from use of AI that may impact the workforce, customers and society at large.
In any business, the board of directors is ultimately responsible for the management of risk. It is the board members who will need to make informed decisions about the deployment of AI technologies, balancing these risks against potential benefits. This is a key theme of the recent report published by the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE), which explores in detail the challenges faced by the board when coming to grips with AI in its business.[1]
In this article, we explore top areas of focus for boards that aim to harness the opportunities offered by AI in a responsible and controlled way.
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