Ethical AI: Who, What, Where, When, and Why?

Introduction

Ethical AI — A highly contested topic on the world stage today, is the debate surrounding whether AI can be used ethically, and if it can be, then how? With the controversies surrounding major AI, and AI-Parallel companies like Open AI and Nvidia, many have been hesitating to make the shift towards AI tools.

Here at Genetech, we also utilize AI tools, especially amongst our content and development teams, so we are also often confronted with the question of ethical AI use, and while this discourse is not only welcome but rather healthy to keep up, it also makes it difficult to get the facts. Facts like what issues AI use tangentially causes, or to what degree AI use is genuinely harmful. As such, in this newsletter we’ll be discussing the following;

• What is Ethical AI?
• Why do we need to be aware of ethical AI practices?
• Who should be aware of and implement Ethical AI practices?
• Where are the hardest effects of AI use being felt?
• When will ethical practice policies around AI use become officially governed?

What is Ethical AI?

Before we answer the question of what defines ethical AI practices, it may be important to outline the reasons why AI is often considered as “unethical” in its use. On this front, the public argues two major reasons as to why AI use is immoral; Environmental Issues, and Economical Issues.

Why is Ethical AI important?

When referring to the former, AI use definitely has an environmental impact considering how they’re set up. Servers that run these AI models around the world are quite demanding, easily overheating computers and causing internal damage, and the solution that was ultimately reached to account for this over-heating issue was liquid cooling.

This is where the environmental trouble begins, as chilled water is used to cool a data center by absorbing heat from computing equipment. It has been estimated that, for each kilowatt hour of energy a data center consumes, it would need two liters of water for cooling, which is used up. Thus leading to a lot of water consumption by AI data-centers.

The latter issue, the economic issue, is more apparent in our day to day. As AI technology gets better and better, it has begun to threaten the job security of various professions, such as content writers, graphic designers, and even some basic development jobs. If this trend continues as is, we are looking at even fewer jobs in a world that already had an employment crisis, and employees actively losing jobs after being replaced by AI bots in the next few years.

So, having discussed why we need Ethical AI, what exactly is it? Well Ethical AI are practices used by businesses and individuals in an effort to mitigate the issues caused by using AI tools in the first place. There are plenty of examples of such practices, ranging from placing limits on tool usage, to evolved hiring and offboarding practices, but they differ depending on whether we’re talking about an organization or an individual’s usage.

How can you use AI Tools Ethically in Your Business?

In recent years AI has found its place in the professional world as well, whether that is for content creation, making workflows more efficient, or automating both simple and complex processes. So, how do you make sure to use these tools ethically? What does using them ethically even entail?

Well, the most common argument seen when discussing the ethical use of AI tools in professional settings, is the economical. As discussed earlier, one of the main issues associated with AI tools is the idea that they may take up open jobs, leading to a decline in job postings and placements. In some cases, this is even the intention of business owners, to replace workers with AI, and keeping the following rules in mind will mean you never stumble into their shoes. AI tools can be used in businesses ethically by;

• Limiting its role to an advisory station, thus keeping it away from the “creation” of any product and allowing that job to go to a human employee,
• Limiting the number of tools you use, the more tools businesses use the more likely they are taking work from their employees, often SMBs do not need more than 2–3 AI tools,
• Maintaining data privacy, many AI tools save their usage data and send it back to use for further training. While this isn’t an inherent issue, it does mean there is a certain level of risk to your business’ data and it’s often as simple as opting out of sharing user-data within the tool’s settings. We also utilize our in-house team of AI experts to develop in-house AI tools and train them off of our own data, which not only keeps our data safe, but allows the AI to be far more used to our particular style of content creation and development. Something we could help you do too!
• Maintaining a rigid credit limit, most AI tools utilize a credit system that allows you to make use of the functions of the tool, and often the more credits you purchase the more “premium features” you can access. Creating a strict budget of AI credits per month and sticking to it means still having the convenience of its use while not sacrificing employee innovation to figure out problems themselves,
• A credit limit, since it also actively limits AI tool usage, makes it so your business’ carbon footprint is limited, since each use of AI tools has a noticeable environmental effect,

By keeping these concerns in mind, and using AI accordingly, businesses can continue to avail the advantages of AI tools while not sacrificing on the moral front. Making you more amicable to customers who are aware of the risks of AI, while still being able to appeal to the Pro-AI crowd, and building your base through the skills of your employees rather than the ability of AI tools that could fail at any point.

AI Policies, Will We Ever See Them?

“AI Control” Policies are also becoming an up and coming talking point, with many worried about the danger to their jobs due to the convenience AI tools offer. As such, this has sparked political debates regarding the implementation of policies limiting the professional use of AI and AI tools, with the general consensus being that, if AI continues to grow at the pace it is, with no oversight regarding the frequency of its use, that such policies will not only become necessary, but inevitable in their implementation.

On a corporate level we are already seeing such policies being enforced, with algorithms on popular social sites singling out AI-generated content and posts and limiting their reach, or online marketplaces penalizing products that have over-used AI tools in development, such as on YouTube and Steam.

YouTube has introduced a series of new policies in an effort to make AI content more identifiable, actively telling viewers that the content they are watching is AI, allowing for those against the use of AI to ignore them as needed. They are also cracking down on AI recreations of notable figures, removing and striking videos that utilize AI tools to recreate the faces and voices of famous actors, politicians, etc.

Steam, being the world’s largest video game distribution platform, has also been cracking down on AI-heavy products. One needs to only glance at the current state of Activision’s most recent release, with players refunding the game by the hundreds only days after release as players found out that this $70 AAA game utilized Generative AI in asset creation, rather than real human developers.

It seems like the next logical step is such policies appearing at a national, then an international, level, if AI use can not be curbed into more ethical limits.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, what is the deal with this conversation around Ethical AI? Is it going to lead to active change or will we continue to live in a world where the use of AI tools and bots is only going to increase faster?

Well, both can be true. As we can see from what we’ve discussed above, the conversation surrounding Ethical AI use is already beginning to cause change. With policies limiting its use already becoming commonplace, and employees making themselves heard regarding their fears surrounding this progress.

The conversation around Ethical AI, much like the one that surrounded innovations like email, or the world wide web, are important. As they establish limits to progress and make sure the world is moving ahead at the same pace and minimize the harmful outcomes, while maximizing the advantages.