Artificial Intelligence (AI) is radially altering our society and entering into every fabric of human life. So it is good to reflect on how good it is for human society? How can we shape AI for the benefit of humanity as a whole?

AI is changing how businesses operate and interact with their customers. The technology enables the automation of routine, easy-to-complete processes, reveals data's insights, and aids users in making more sensible judgments. However, as AI becomes more and more integrated into the IT industry, worries about its possible abuse are mounting.

A rising number of businesses are beginning to focus on how AI may be prevented from making potentially damaging conclusions in order to address the ethical issues that can result from non-human data processing and decision-making.

AI is a potent technology with a vast array of advantageous qualities. Francesca Rossi, IBM's worldwide leader for AI ethics, thinks that in order to adequately assess the technology's potential benefits, we must create a system of trust in both those who develop it and the technology itself. "Problems of bias, explainability, data handling, openness on data policies, systems capabilities, and design decisions should be addressed in a responsible and transparent way," the statement reads.

AI ethicist Olivia Gambelin, CEO of the ethics consulting company Ethical Intelligence, says that the focus of AI ethics should be on understanding the influence of AI on society, minimizing unexpected consequences, and promoting positive global innovation. The process of operationalizing AI ethics entails the conversion of abstract ideas into specific, definable behaviors and aims to enable technology with fundamentally human values at its core, according to the author.

Some Risk Areas: According to Kentaro Toyama, the W.K. Kellogg professor of community information at the University of Michigan School of Information, there are countless ways that AI might be misused or abused, and many of them currently are. Deep-fake photography providing visual "proof" of outright lies, military drones using AI to decide to kill, and businesses purchasing and selling AI-based judgments about you for profit. He adds that "algorithmic fairness" is another current hot topic in AI ethics. How can we guarantee that racial, gender, and other biases against particular groups of individuals in digital systems are eliminated? Toyama enquires.

Ethical Intelligence: According to Scott Zoldi, chief analytics officer at FICO, an analytics company that specializes in credit scoring services, the enthusiasm surrounding AI is colliding head-on with the stark reality of hastily developed and deployed machine learning models that may indeed meet a specific business outcome, but only at the expense of impacting disparate groups. The business users of machine learning models "become irresponsible and crass in their decision-making, frequently not even monitoring or questioning outcomes" due to the mystique surrounding these models.

According to Lama Nachman, head of Intel's intelligent systems laboratories, while AI systems frequently perform well when using the data they have been trained with, many of them start to perform poorly when faced with new real-world data. She adds, "This creates certain safety concerns, such as an autonomous car misclassifying unusual scenes. To prevent drift over time, it is crucial that these [AI] systems are overseen and monitored.

Discussion on AI Ethics: An organization's AI technologies should be developed and implemented in accordance with a set of principles and standards known as an AI ethics policy. Nachman explains that this strategy is "usually based on a risk analysis approach, where people who are active in the definition, development, sales, and/or deployment of these systems will examine the possible dangers that are typically associated with AI technology." She continues, "In general, AI ethical principles cover things like fairness, transparency, privacy, security, safety, accountability, inclusivity, and human oversight."

A written AI ethics policy is no longer just nice to have but an actual survival requirement, according to Gambelin, as more and more AI laws are being passed and the market demand for ethical technology grows. "AI-driven firms save time and money in the long run by designing solid and innovative solutions from the start by using ethics as a core decision-making tool."

Perspective for AI Ethics: Companies creating AI technology should start thinking about ethical challenges from the very beginning of their projects. Anand Rao, worldwide AI lead at business consulting firm PwC, asserts that "they must build the solutions with an ethical perspective." He adds that ethics "cannot just be a checkbox exercise at the conclusion of the product roll-out."

Only 20% of businesses have an AI ethics framework in place as of 2021, and only 35% had plans to strengthen the governance of AI systems and processes. However, Rao hopes for better results this year because "responsible AI" was CEOs' top objective for AI in 2021.

According to IBM's Rossi, business and IT leaders must adopt a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and multi-stakeholder strategy to foster trust in AI. The trust system should make sure that problems are found, spoken about, and solved in a collaborative setting. This kind of collaborative, interdisciplinary approach, according to her, will yield the best results and is most likely to create a thorough and efficient environment for reliable AI.

AI ethics is “a beautifully complex industry full of passionate individuals and motivated organizations.” according to Gambelin. She observes that AI ethics are at a turning point. Ethics will be the instrument that enables us to put these hopes and aspirations into reality. "This is a unique moment in time when we, as humans, have the opportunity to reflect on what we actually want to gain from our technology."

We need honest answers to the larger question of how AI affects the human society. We cannot leave it only to experts in AI. Nor can the corporates be given a free hand in shaping policies that shapes our common future. An ethics that seeks the common good of all of us and provides sincere answers to the doubts of the critics is the need of the hour. So AI demands from the corporates and AI experts honesty and authenticity. Knowing that it shapes every fabric of human society in the coming decades, we owe it to ourselves and our future generation, how we allow AI to shape human relationship, human worth and dignity for the better.

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