Article

In Defense of AI

January 20, 2021

The future is artificial intelligence (AI). Every industry and all areas of businesses in some ways will integrate and streamline their current processes with AI Technology. AI can essentially describe a wide-ranging branch of computer science concerned with building smart machines capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence.^[1] AI is based on algorithms that rely on large databases that store data, including data from learned behaviour. From healthcare and medicine, hiring processes, marketing, business, and education, every industry will be impacted and will be actively leveraging AI tools in some capacity.

AI technology can be used to quickly gain insights, generate predictions, improve operations, and even increase productivity in a workplace. The application of the various forms of AI and how they may be leveraged is evolving in all sorts of professional services. Machine learning, deep learning, robotics, computer vision, cognitive computing, artificial general intelligence, natural language processing and knowledge reasoning are some of the main branches of artificial intelligence.

Corporations can leverage a diverse set of AI technologies to add efficiency, condense marketing research, sort through data, etc.^[2] Alibaba, the world's largest online retailer, employs natural language processing to automatically generate product descriptions that will appeal to its consumers. Amazon collects huge amounts of data on its consumers buying habits and uses predictive analytics to recommend items before a shopper may even realize what they may need. IBM has created a new AI computing engine that "competed against two professional debaters and formulated human-like arguments."^[3] In the gas and oil industry, data regarding pipelines, reservoirs, fields and wells, etc., can be used to predict the next breakdown or where to leverage resources for maintenance purposes. As such, with the increasing usage of technology during today's time, if businesses do not move forward with engaging such technology they risk missing the ability to gain insight, build revenue, smarter business strategies and other advantages.^[4] As we move towards a world where AI related technologies become more common, the question transitions from, is AI necessary, to recognizing the risks involved, forming solutions and developing strategies to deploy AI intelligently and ethically.

I. Issues with New Technologies

It is possible to deploy responsibly these new technologies. As AI is introduced to new industries and within a wide array of business operations, concerns relating to data privacy, transparency, regulation and compliance, algorithmic bias, and proper vetting and implementation will need to be addressed. Many surveys reflect that companies will attract more funding when they are classified or use AI terminology in their marketing tactics, incentivizing them to lie or manipulate to gain funding. Additionally, with the drop of new tools and products inundating the market, proper vetting is a challenge. Many companies are taking advantage of the investments that leveraging such buzzwords can bring; therefore, proper vetting and transparency are a necessity.^[5] On the legislation side, with new emerging technologies relating to so many key industries such as healthcare and human resources, implementing and updating policies to ensure people and businesses are protected has become quite difficult.^[6] It is recognized that there can be problems with AI, in some form, even output can be manipulated by the data that is submitted. Therefore, intentionally or not, algorithmic bias can exist. When it comes to hiring, gender, race, and background can all come into play and there can expose true discrimination on the AI side.^[7] On the data collection side, ensuring data privacy laws while ensuring the proper set of data is used for machine learning purposes is vital. Transparency and proper regulation of these new technologies are quite critical, the question is how?

II. Vetting & Deployment

Current regulation is not sufficient to regulate the use of AI and require updating. As of now, it is the responsibility of the agency that is implementing the new technology to ensure compliance and that regulations are met and to properly vet the tool. Meanwhile, the lack of understanding of AI among both government and corporate employees is wide-spread. As a society, we should focus on building and training individuals to be more tech savvy, which will lead to the proper and efficient usage of technology.^[8] To ensure corporations can recognize falsified information and comfortably implement these new tools, new roles that specifically address this challenge will need to be created.

Separately, we must address how to add transparency into how these tools function, while maintaining a safeguard to ensure proprietary information and algorithms are protected. Additionally, to address any potential errors produced by AI, it is imperative that the data being inputted is the "right" set of data, and in relation to the output, multiple rounds of testing should occur. If these tools are not properly vetted and implemented, the results can be catastrophic, especially in industries or aspects of a workflow that directly relate to the well-being of humans. As quoted by Frank Pasquale, Julia Powles and Helen Nissenbaum state, "Any A.I. system that is integrated into people's lives must be capable of contest, account, and redress to citizens and representatives of the public interest."^[9]

III. Future of AI

The effective integration of AI into a business will be the marker of success, although there will be challenges that will overlap or be unique to each industry. As we head into the future, our focus should be on how can we continuously improve and integrate AI into our work and lifestyle. The usage of AI will become such a norm that people will not even realize the influence AI has on a multitude of industries. Adding a foundational training or course on AI technology for staff and students regardless of their background will build a stronger foundation. Additionally, cross-collaboration should be required and recommended to successfully mitigate challenges and address concerns regarding deployment of new technologies. For instance, data scientist, attorneys and IT professionals may all be needed to successfully approve and implement new technology. Additionally, experts in the industry will need to assist in properly vetting new tools, as they will be able to bring the industry specific insight. The usage of AI technology is inevitable, as the benefits far outweigh the concerns. Instead, in defense of AI, the focus of discussions should be building an AI-enabled world responsibly and ethically.

Holly Henry and Aled Roberts, Associates on FRA's Data Governance, Technology Solutions and Forensics team, are also contributing authors to this article.