There are plenty of touchpoints between AI and ethics. Much of the public discussion centers on questions of existential risk, of algorithmic bias, surveillance, privacy etc.
What is hardly ever discussed is: Contrary to other ground-breaking and potentially harmful technologies often developed in universities, the most powerful AI applications stem primarily from private corporations driven by profit.
This means that questions of AI ethics must always be linked to business ethics, and its core elements like corporate responsibility, accountability along the value chain and towards stakeholders, and safe and responsible products.
In a recent article for the magazine „THINK“, published by The HEAD Foundation, I discuss how well AI firms are adapting to current day notions of business ethics.
Spoiler: poorly! Leading AI companies‘ singular focus on money and power leaves little room to consider the rights of those who contribute to and are affected by AI advancements. Put differently, it is at odds with modern notions of corporate responsibility.
The AI industry tends to overlook supply chain considerations and fails to acknowledge stakeholders: AI companies like to pretend, and users want to believe, that their products are mainly virtual and intangible and that the work behind them is either done by algorithms or by highly paid human engineers. Yet, as evident by the term „Ghost Work“ this is not true.
In particular, AI companies encounter two distinctly new types of stakeholders and they do not pay them the attention they deserve: the people whose data is used to train AI models (human data sources) the individuals to whom AI is applied (human objects of AI).
With regards to product safety: AI models‘ inherent lack of transparency constitutes one of the key impediments to ensuring their safety. Hans Jonas‘ precautionary principles, which states: “Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life” or, conversely, “Do not compromise the conditions for an indefinite continuation of humanity on earth”, seems to be primarily disregarded by those at the forefront of AI development.
Concluding: yes, AI is exceptional in many ways, and influential figures cultivate this impression with bold claims, threats, and promises. But we should not lose sight of the fact that profit-seeking companies control the most influential AI applications. Regarding business ethics, these companies must be held to the same fundamental standards as any other company: to act with integrity and ensure that what they do and sell benefits humanity, rather than vice versa.
Read the full article here.