Ethical problems with AI, robotics & co. are addressed too little
The majority of business leaders see ethical problems with AI, robotics & co. For this reason, digital ethics is becoming more important to management and boards of directors than IT security, as a new study shows.
Companies must act quickly to address the ethical challenges posed by technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics & co. This is shown by current Research from Avanadea leading digital innovator in the Microsoft ecosystem. Corresponding information from the company's new "Trendlines" report states that disregarding ethical responsibilities can endanger the trust of customers and employees - along with warnings of resulting revenue losses and competitive disadvantages. Ethical challenges thus also harbor economic explosives.
Ethical problems are seen
A total of 1,200 so-called "C-levels" from large companies, i.e. high-ranking IT and business decision-makers, were surveyed in twelve countries. The majority of the feedback (82 percent) revealed that digital ethics is indeed necessary as a basis for successful AI use. At the same time, however, 81 percent of interviewees said they lacked full confidence in their organizations to make adequate preparations. Thus, four out of five participants see shortcomings in addressing ethical issues related to AI, robotics and similar technologies.
Andreas Schindler, Managing Director of Avanade Schweiz GmbH, says that digital ethics as a topic on the boardroom agenda is growing even faster than IT security: "Increasingly, customers are approaching us for relevant business-critical discussions. A resilient ethics framework plays an increasingly important role in building long-term, trustworthy relationships with customers, employees and other stakeholders."
Job description Ethics Officer
While compliance officers are commonplace in companies today, this is not currently the case for ethics officers. That will change: Avanade predicts a significant increase in corresponding positions here with an eye on digital ethics over the next one to three years. These roles could have broad cross-cutting functions into most other business areas, including compliance, risk management, product development, marketing, brand and reputation management, corporate citizenship, and more.
Consequently, Avanade has established a global, cross-functional working group within its own company. It is responsible for developing and steering the corresponding internal ethics framework. This framework has four components: Fairness and Inclusion, Human Accountability, Trustworthiness and Adaptability. Decisions derived from this framework are ultimately made by the company's Ethics and Compliance Council.
"Digital ethics is increasingly becoming a topic of discussion on the board. However, it is everyone's responsibility to ensure that their company takes into account the ethical consequences of its actions," says Schindler. "Acting means setting guiding principles, making them transparent internally and externally, and providing training. Using ethics hackers for unannounced reviews is also advisable, as is participating in public discussions. Most importantly, employees should be given both best practices and tools to incorporate 'ethics by design' into their work."
