Artificial intelligence

AI is grappling with several ethical dilemmas that will raise issues of data privacy, biases, and data transparency.

Artificial intelligence is taking over the world with its capability to replicate human intelligence and providing an easier lifestyle. Various AI-driven technologies like machine learning, deep learning, big data analytics, and computer vision are used across all industries to improve production efficiency and business growth. Although, there has always been suspicion regarding the ethical issues of artificial intelligence. Imagine the future where AI machines do every domestic chore, take up jobs, interact with humans like humans, and take over the streets. Wait, isn’t AI already doing half of these? Yes, they are and it is high time we ponder on the ethical aspects of AI so that we can stop them from overpowering. 

Business magnate Elon Musk has always shown his disapproval of AI and called it “the biggest existential threat.” His words might become true if we do not address the ethical questions and develop a governance strategy for these human-like human-made technologies.

According to a Yahoo article, AI’s role in disinformation, and problems in areas including privacy and facial recognition, are causing companies to think twice about using the technology. Sometimes, businesses are so concerned about AI ethics that they are killing projects involving AI or never starting them. AI is vastly used in data processing and prediction and this raises data privacy concerns for people. These data chunks can be misused, which increases cyber threats and security breaches for the public. Since ransomware attacks are prevalent in the business world, AI and big data can be a boob as well as bane at the same time.  

Chatbots are widely adopted AI-driven technology that helps in customer interactions, tracking consumer behaviour, and determining trends. They work on certain command and training datasets, but when these chatbots replicate human intelligence they can deviate human behaviour and even make them tech addicts. For example, a 2014 BBC article covered the news of a chatbot named Eugene Goostman passing the famous Turing test. The Turing test is to determine whether a machine can think. 

The chatbot simulated a 13-year old Ukrainian boy and it was the first-ever case of a computer passing the test.  AI taking over jobs is not something new to our ears. There have been discussions and debates going on regarding the displacement of jobs with the advent of AI and it is a reality. Artificial intelligence has taken up many industrial jobs, which were earlier done by humans. Departments like data processing and analyzing, loading and unloading, manufacturing, logistics, etc., have a lot more AI interference now. Once there is unemployment in a particular section of the society, labour distribution biases will arise and revenue will discriminately reach only a privileged/tech-skilled sector of people. 

AI’s inherent biases are one of the most important ethical issues to resolve. AI is not always neutral and unbiased. An article by Fortune reported how Microsoft followed IBM and Amazon in barring police from using its facial recognition technology and the decisions came during the ‘black lives matter’ protest last year. The report says, “A.I. researchers and activists have been critical of facial-recognition technology because of its potential to be misused by police departments, some of which have a history of racial discrimination, and its higher inaccuracy when used on women and people of color.” Apparently, the facial recognition app performs better on lighter-skinned males. This is not unusual. In fact, there have been cases where risk analysis software predicted results based on the race of people. 

Artificial intelligence is indeed artificial. They are fed with existing human biases and thus the discriminatory results. 

It is imperative to understand AI’s ethical challenges and create a framework to alleviate future ethical dilemmas. Artificial intelligence is not something we can avoid since it has huge benefits on its side for the upcoming generations. New controls and governance policies need to be made and these should be made available to others. Machine learning algorithms should be re-examined to ensure data transparency, ethical values, and removing biases. Companies should have transparent communication with their customers regarding data usage and privacy. This is just a small gist of the ethical concerns revolving around AI, and there’s a long way to go till we can boast about ethical, unbiased artificial intelligence technologies.