AI is cool. Using AI with ethical intelligence is even cooler!
How to work correctly with artificial intelligence? The best leaders consistently apply these crucial qualities of ethical leadership:
1. Honesty
2. Responsibility
3. Care
4. Courage
5. Equity
6. Acknowledgments
7. Humility
Let’s take a closer look at each. I will define each quality and profile leaders who exemplify each of these traits in their work with AI.
1. Honesty
Honest people love the truth.
The most fundamental character trait is honesty. No matter how caring or grateful a person is; if they are not honest, there is no reason to trust them.
Honesty is above all a feeling, a disposition, an orientation towards the truth. Honest leaders cannot tolerate lying, fudging data, misrepresenting themselves or their company, or engaging in any other conduct that demonstrates a disregard for the truth. Lying in all its forms is poison to an honest person.
Transparency is a way for leaders to demonstrate their commitment to honesty. When it comes to AI, this means openly sharing how AI systems make decisions, explaining what data is used, and recognizing the limitations and biases of these systems. In doing so, these leaders build trust and accountability in their use of AI.
But one study by Stanford HAI (Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence) found that AI models are often lack transparency. The Foundation Model Transparency Index ranked 10 major AI companies, including Meta’s Llama 2, OpenAI’s GPT-4, and Google’s PaLM 2, and found that they were severely lacking in this aspect of honesty. Amazon only had 12% transparency compared to its Titan Text. “No major foundation model developer is close to providing adequate transparency, revealing a fundamental lack of transparency in the AI industry,” according to the study.
Why should these companies and the public be concerned? A lack of transparency also affects companies’ ability to rely on technology and compromises consumers’ ability to understand the limitations of models.
Whoever said, “There is no such thing as bad publicity” did not have a report like this in mind. (The proverb is often attributed to PT Barnum, but it is unclear whether he actually said it.)
2. Responsibility
The word “responsibility” may start with an “a”, but the concept of responsibility does begin with … (+)
Responsible leaders do four things consistently:
· Keep their promises
· Consider the consequences of their actions
· Take responsibility for their mistakes
· Fix their mistakes
Note my use of the word “constantly.” It’s not enough to keep your promises every now and then or take responsibility for your mistakes here and there. Ethical leadership in general and responsible leadership in particular means doing these four things day in and day out. Yes, we all fail sometimes, but true accountability means hitting the mark more often than not.
Amazon previously used an AI-based recruiting tool that proved detrimental to female candidates. It was trained based on resumes submitted over a decade, mostly by men, and the AI learned to prefer male applicants over female applicants. To Amazon’s credit, the company stopped using the system after attempts failed to correct the problem. This is a great example of a company taking responsibility for their mistakes and then making appropriate repairs.
3. Care
Caring people are cool.
Concern, like honesty, is above all a strong feeling or passion. Where honesty means having a passion for the truth, care means having a deep concern for people’s well-being and flourishing. Many people include animals and the environment among the things that interest them. Of course, caring people do more than feel determined to help people. They put these feelings into action.
Home Helpers, home care service provider, demonstrates a caring approach to its use of artificial intelligence. The company’s president and CEO, Emma Dickison, explained how the company is exploring applications of AI to improve home monitoring technology, virtual assistants and marketing solutions. Dickison emphasizes that any AI solution must be cost-effective and privacy-friendly. A company committed to ethical leadership rightly wants to avoid becoming an Orwellian “Big Brother.”
Home Helpers is careful with AI tools. It avoids using free versions of tools like ChatGPT that could compromise proprietary information. Dickson said Home Health Care News the writer Joyce Famakinwa:
“We don’t allow anyone internally to use the free version of ChatGPT because it powers their algorithms. It can reveal your IP address, proprietary information, etc. We make sure to use a premium version. You just want to be very careful and put in place internal guardrails and policies that recognize how and when you can use AI in your business. Whichever gives you the best reward and involves the least risk.
It’s only fitting that a company dedicated to home care exemplifies a caring approach in all aspects of its mission. “(We) will continue to work on behalf of our clients to keep care affordable and so that our caregivers can have long-term professional careers in this industry,” Dickison told me in an interview.
4. Courage
The best leaders are courageous leaders.
“Courage is the resistance to fear, the mastery of fear, not the absence of fear,” wrote Mark Twain. The field of AI is a rich place to see courageous leaders in action.
Take, for example, Dr. Timnit Gebru, former co-lead of the ethical artificial intelligence team at Google. Her groundbreaking research, conducted with Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, revealed the biases of AI systems, particularly in facial recognition software, against people of color. This research has rightly sparked significant discussion and moratoriums on the use of such software.
In an article about Dr. Gebru for MIT Technology Review, Karen Hao wrote: “Immediately after (his firing from Google), more than 2,600 Google employees and 4,300 others signed a petition denouncing Gebru’s firing as “unprecedented research censorship.” Six months later, Hao continues, research groups are still refusing company funding, researchers are refusing to participate in conference workshops, and employees are leaving in protest.
Dr. Gebru is a shining example of a courageous leader, as she has consistently challenged major tech companies on their ethical AI practices. She risked her professional reputation to advocate for accountability and shine a light on the biases inherent in AI systems, particularly against marginalized groups.
How far would it go You go and defend what you believe in?
5. Equity
What does equity mean in the context of AI leadership? Continue reading.
To be fair is to give others their due. We sometimes talk about equity in terms of justice. For example, in the workplace, fairness means ensuring that employees are paid their fair value (economic justice), that they are not subject to harassment (social justice), and that they have the opportunity to assert their grievances and disputes (procedural justice).
Here’s an example of how one company took its commitment to fairness when it comes to AI seriously. Fujitsu Laboratories have formed an international group AI Ethics Research Team, composed of members from Japan, the United States and Europe, to address the ethical challenges related to the development of AI. Bias in data and algorithms is a pernicious and pervasive problem in AI systems, as we have discussed. Without preventative measures, such biases can lead to unethical consequences, such as racial and gender discrimination.
“To avoid discrimination in AI decisions, we must first prevent unfair biases from being included in AI models and datasets,” notes Yuri Nakao, a team member based at Japan.
6. Gratitude and 7. Humility
Gratitude and humility are both real ethical questions, because they are both questions of … (+)
Gratitude and humility are two sides of the same coin. Humble leaders recognize that they cannot achieve greatness alone. It takes a team to do it. Grateful leaders regularly recognize the work team members do to make greatness possible.
Satya Nadella’s tenure as CEO of Microsoft is a great example of how gratitude and humility can profoundly influence leadership for the better in AI. When he rose to the management position in 2014, Nadella evolved Microsoft’s culture from aggressive competition to one emphasizing empathy, collaboration and ethical responsibility. By focusing on increase human capabilities rather than replace them, he steered the company toward a more human approach to AI. There were two positive outcomes: Nadella’s approach not only democratized AI, but also resulted in significant financial success for Microsoft.
Yes, it is possible to do well by doing good. Satya Nadella is an inspiring example.
Summary
Here is the essence of the article, summarized in a few words.
The best leaders in the AI industry consistently exemplify these traits:
1. Honesty
2. Responsibility
3. Care
4. Courage
5. Equity
6. Acknowledgments
7. Humility
We all make mistakes from time to time in each of the above areas. But ethical leadership means doing our best to exemplify these traits more often. The people we serve deserve nothing less.
