Why You Must Embrace Responsible AI Now

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) just put out a warning to brands...

Get serious about responsible AI or face regulatory consequences.

BCG recently released guidelines for how companies should approach AI responsibly.

They define responsible AI as “developing and operating artificial intelligence systems that align with organizational values and widely accepted standards of right and wrong, while achieving transformative business impact.”

And they recommend you take four key actions to start using AI responsibly:

1. Establish responsible AI as a strategic priority supported by senior leadership.
2. Set up and empower those leading responsible AI efforts.
3. Make sure everyone in the organization is aware of the importance of responsible AI.
4. Conduct an AI risk assessment for your own brand.

Why worry about responsible AI now?

BCG warns that government regulations are coming.

In particular, the European Union’s AI Act is expected to drop in 2023. It’s “one of the first broad-ranging regulatory frameworks on AI,” says BCG.

The EU’s AI Act will apply whenever you do business with any EU citizen, regardless of where you—or they—are located. (Think: GDPR-style compliance.)

Not to mention, BCG expects other governments to follow suit with AI regulations once the AI Act is in place.

That means sometime soon, serious AI regulations are likely to be coming to a country near you.

Here’s how you should be thinking about this in the near future. 👇

Why It Matters

In Episode 23 of the Marketing AI Show, Marketing AI Institute founder/CEO Paul Roetzer and I share actionable tips on how your brand can approach AI responsibly.

• Stricter regulations are inevitable. “What we’re hearing from our friends and thought leaders in this space that pay close attention to the regulations is just behave as though you’re under the European Union’s AI Act guidelines, whether you’re in Europe, America, or anywhere else,” says Roetzer. Regulations like the AI Act will be used as a template by other governments soon.
• You can’t avoid issues around responsible and ethical AI. Regulations will force you to act. So will AI adoption. Even if you're an AI beginner, you’ll quickly run into ethical issues around data, how it's used, and who provides it.
• You need an AI ethics policy or guidelines. “From the beginning, you need to think about the ethical use of this stuff. It gives you superpowers, which you can use for good or for evil, and it’s only going to get more powerful,” says Roetzer. Companies like Google have established AI guidelines you can use or adapt to start.
• Human-centered AI is the way forward. You need a human-centered approach to applying AI. “AI doesn’t exist to cut your writing staff from 10 to five people. It’s not why you should be using it,” says Roetzer. “The human-centered approach is saying, ‘We have 10 writers. We actually could produce the same output with five. How can we redistribute the other five people to create more fulfilling work and do interesting things we didn’t have time to do before?’”
• And company leadership needs to be involved every step of the way. “It’s critical that these conversations are had at a high level within your organization, that you realize what this technology is going to do, and you have frameworks to help you do it in an ethical and human-centered way,” says Roetzer.

What to Do About It

• Read BCG’s full guidelines on responsible AI.
• Check out Google’s AI principles for inspiration.
• Learn more about how leaders should approach AI in our book, Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing, and the Future of Business.

Learn More About This Topic

PS — You can hear the whole conversation about this topic and more cutting-edge AI news in Episode 23 of the Marketing AI Show, out now.