How business leaders can build confidence in AI

Fujitsu / February 13, 2024

Board executives worldwide are grappling with a new challenge that came out of left field barely 12 months ago – the rise of generative AI.

There’s little doubt that the future changed in November 2022, as generative AI revealed its unlimited possibilities. What’s now emerging is a growing common understanding of the challenges – the consequences, uncertainties and risks to people, society and businesses.

Indeed, no one wants to get left behind in the opportunity to make giant strides for their stakeholders. But, along with all their astonishing powers, generative AI appears to come with hallucinations and bias baked in. Bias is not restricted to generative AI and LLMs alone and can be present in any training data, model, or AI prediction. However, the risk of bias in generative AI systems has simply made the topic of responsible AI front and center in corporate conversations.

What major concerns do business leaders have regarding AI?

Executives must set their organization’s standard, striking the balance between what can be done with AI and what should be done with it. Developing robust corporate policies to establish accountability, ensuring AI systems align with ethical requirements, and maintaining transparency are critical first steps. Keeping a close eye on upcoming regulations is another essential task.
The EU’s AI Act, now reaching the final stages of legislation, will soon enforce unbiased and ethical use of AI with fines up to 7% of turnover, or €35M. In the UK, firms regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are already exposed to obligations under the senior managers and certification regime (SMCR), which holds “accountable individuals” responsible for demonstrating the explainability of decisions made by AI.
C-level executives are left grappling with fundamental questions: Can you trust AI? How do you ensure that decisions delivered by AI are impartial, conform to legislation and uphold basic human rights? And how do you do that without the additional headaches of locating, evaluating and training all their people to use multiple technologies from various vendors?

What is needed to build confidence in AI?

Undoubtedly, generative AI is rapidly becoming a new tool in executives’ belts to drive profitability. In this race driven by the numbers (profit, shareholder returns), making sure AI systems are trustable can be perceived as a slowdown.
In particular, people are not looking past the resource gaps – not just money and skills but also the scarcity of GPUs – that might emerge when addressing the three critical areas of AI trust – ethics, security, and quality.
Resources must be invested to ensure AI outputs are fair and accurate, that data acquisition and use do not hinder consumer privacy, and that new personalized functionalities, such as personalized ads, do not lead to discrimination. Yet, those organizations investing in trustable AI have a chance to stand out from the crowd: soon, ethics will be a source of competitive differentiation.

Loading component...

Loading component...

Loading component...

Loading component...

Loading component...

Loading component...

Loading component...