A new IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) study revealed a radical shift in the roles responsible for leading and upholding AI ethics at an organisation.
When asked which function is primarily accountable for AI ethics, 80% of respondents pointed to a non-technical executive, such as a CEO, as the primary 'champion' for AI ethics, a sharp uptick from 15% in 2018.
The global study also indicates that despite a strong imperative for advancing trustworthy AI, including better performance compared to peers in sustainability, social responsibility and diversity and inclusion, there remains a gap between leaders' intention and meaningful actions.
The study found that business executives are now seen as the driving force in AI ethics:
- CEOs (28%), but also Board members (10%), General Counsels (10%), Privacy Officers (8%), and Risk - Compliance Officers (6%) are viewed as being most accountable for AI ethics by those surveyed.
- While 66% of respondents cite the CEO or other C-level executive as having a strong influence on their organisation's ethics strategy, more than half cite board directives (58%) and the shareholder community (53%).
Building trustworthy AI is perceived as a strategic differentiator and organisations are beginning to implement AI ethics mechanisms:
- More than three-quarters of business leaders surveyed this year agree AI ethics is important to their organisations, up from about 50% in 2018.
- At the same time, 75% of respondents believe ethics is a source of competitive differentiation, and more than 67% of respondents that view AI and AI ethics as important indicate their organisations outperform their peers in sustainability, social responsibility, and diversity and inclusion.
- Many companies have started making strides. In fact, more than half of respondents say their organisations have taken steps to embed AI ethics into their existing approach to business ethics.
- More than 45% of respondents say their organisations have created AI-specific ethics mechanisms, such as an AI project risk assessment framework and auditing/review process.
Ensuring ethical principles are embedded in AI solutions is an urgent need for organisations, but progress is still too slow:
- More surveyed CEOs (79%) are now prepared to embed AI ethics into their AI practices, up from 20% in 2018, and more than half of responding organisations have publicly endorsed common principles of AI ethics.
- Yet, less than a quarter of responding organisations have operationalised AI ethics, and fewer than 20% of respondents strongly agreed that their organisation's practices and actions match (or exceed) their stated principles and values.
- 68% of surveyed organisations acknowledge that having a diverse and inclusive workplace is important to mitigating bias in AI, but findings indicate that AI teams are still substantially less diverse than their organisations' workforces: 5.5 times less inclusive of women, 4 times less inclusive of LGBT+ individuals and 1.7 times less racially inclusive.
IBM Consulting global managing partner Jesus Mantas says, "As many companies today use AI algorithms across their business, they potentially face increasing internal and external demands to design these algorithms to be fair, secured and trustworthy; yet, there has been little progress across the industry in embedding AI ethics into their practices.
"Our IBV study findings demonstrate that building trustworthy AI is a business imperative and a societal expectation, not just a compliance issue. As such, companies can implement a governance model and embed ethical principles across the full AI life cycle."
The time for companies to act is now, the researchers state. The study data suggests that those organisations who implement a broad AI ethics strategy interwoven throughout business units may have a competitive advantage moving forward.
The study provides recommended actions for business leaders including:
- Take a cross-functional, collaborative approach: Ethical AI requires a holistic approach, and a holistic set of skills across all stakeholders involved in the AI ethics process, according to the researchers. C-Suite executives, designers, behavioural scientists, data scientists, and AI engineers each have a distinct role to play in the trustworthy AI journey.
- Establish both organisational and AI lifecycle governance to operationalise the discipline of AI ethics. This means taking a holistic approach to incentivising, managing and governing AI solutions across the full AI lifecycle, from establishing the right culture to nurture AI responsibly, to practices and policies to products.
- Reach beyond the organisation for partnership: Expand your approach by identifying and engaging key AI-focused technology partners, academics, startups, and other ecosystem partners to establish 'ethical interoperability'.
