AI should make us better people, professionals, and organizations—but that won’t happen if we don’t continually focus on the responsible application of AI across all business functions.
That’s why we at Marketing AI Institute released The Responsible AI Manifesto for Marketing and Business, a document that codifies our responsible AI principles. The document has 12 major principles around how we use and approach AI technologies.
We encourage you to read through the manifesto yourself and use it to build your own AI ethics policy. (The manifesto is usable under a Creative Commons license.)
As you do, let’s talk about why it’s so important to have your own AI ethics policy and guidelines for your organization.
In Episode 33 of The Marketing AI Show, Marketing AI Institute founder/CEO Paul Roetzer talked to me about why businesses must move quickly to establish rules around how they use AI.
The rate of acceleration in AI forced us to codify our responsible AI principles, even though we know they’re imperfect.
That’s because there’s simply no more time to delay developing AI policies. Stunning new tools like ChatGPT are quickly upending business as usual. And major tech companies are quickly innovating in an AI arms race to release new technology as fast as possible.
Companies will start having to ask and answer difficult questions about how they use powerful new AI tools for themselves and on behalf of their customers—and it’s going to happen fast.
You may be tempted to rely on governments to provide comprehensive policies around how to use AI responsibly.
This is a mistake.
Government is going to lag behind when it comes to AI. And government regulatory efforts like the European Union’s AI Act are going to be very complicated to enforce in practice. At this stage, it’s unclear if government regulations of AI’s capabilities in their current forms today are even feasible.
“It’s essential that we accept there’s going to need to be self-governance at the company level,” says Roetzer.
Not having responsible AI policies leaves you exposed to serious risks. Here’s why:
“There’s going to be a lot of cases where people are going to be asked at their place of employment to do something with AI that they’re not going to agree with,” says Roezter. “But there’s going to be no policies or laws to prevent them from doing it.”
Thanks to the factors discussed above, we’re in the Wild West right now. There is going to be competitive pressure to cut corners and overstep ethical boundaries.
That makes it essential for firms to create very clear policies for their employees around the responsible use of AI technology.
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