HR leaders are now at the center of conversations about AI Ethics At work. This is not only because they are responsible for developing and administering employee policies, but also because HR has been using artificial intelligence for years (whether acknowledged or no) through vendor partners and key workplace technology platforms.
THE Deloitte Technology Trust Ethics recently released team results of a new survey examining C-suites’ perspectives on preparing the workforce for ethical AI. In this report, 100 leaders shared their thoughts on establishing AI policies and guidelines for their organizations.
The results paint a clear picture: HR leaders will be needed more than ever.
Leaders are not turning a blind eye to the need for ethics training for their workforce, according to Beena Ammanath, co-author of the report and leader of Deloitte’s Technology Trust Ethics practice. She wrote that strategies such as upskilling, hiring for new positions, and acquiring companies with existing AI capabilities “demonstrate that they recognize the immense possibility that only the human element can generate from AI”.
HR leaders nod, accustomed to upskilling and recruiting for capabilities that meet the needs of the organization. While the hot topic of the moment is the effective and ethical implementation of artificial intelligence, HR teams have upskilling and recruiting in their DNA.
According to the study, more than half of business leaders plan to recruit talent for AI-related roles, such as ethics researcher, compliance specialist and technology policy analyst.
Second, some leaders are considering the roles of chief ethics officer and chief trust officer, recruiting efforts that will likely land on the desks of human resources managers.
Creating policies
The world has open access to generative tools and everyone is talking about artificial intelligence. However, in many organizations, AI strategy So far, the discussions have been purely theoretical. Now that the European Parliament Having reached a milestone by approving the Artificial Intelligence Act, global business leaders are under pressure to document policies defining appropriate use cases for artificial intelligence and understand risk threats.
Executives told Deloitte that issuing clear policies and guidelines is the “most effective method of communicating AI ethics to staff.” Nearly 90% of organizations surveyed are implementing these procedures now or soon. Experts suggest that human resources managers should have a say in developing these guidelines.
“HR doesn’t want employees to be held to policies and procedures that haven’t been properly structured,” advises Asha Palmer, senior vice president of compliance solutions at Enterprise Learning Platform. SoftSkill.
She points out that HR managers will likely be involved later if employees fail to comply with a policy that was not properly positioned or communicated from the start.
Establish employee trust
While senior executives surveyed by Deloitte said ethical guidelines for emerging technologies like generative AI were critical to revenue growth, 90% also said the guidelines are important for maintaining employee confidence. More than 80% also say that ethical safeguards are essential to attracting talent. Building employee trust and attracting talent is more important than meeting shareholder expectations or complying with current regulations.
Report co-author Kwasi Mitchell, head of DEI at Deloitte US, wrote that employer organizations play an instrumental role in the responsible adoption and implementation of AI. “I am encouraged by the contributions of C-level leaders who are prioritizing awareness, training and the use of ethics so that we can collectively produce better results for our companies and our people,” said he declared.
A recent PwC report found that only 67% of employees say they trust their employer. Meanwhile, 86% of business leaders believe their employees have high trust in them, highlighting the opportunity to mitigate this disconnect by demonstrating a commitment to ethical implementation.
Training women leaders
This month, IBM released a investigation surveyed 200 U.S.-based executives, executives, and middle managers on AI adoption, including an equal number of women and men. The report suggests that women have a unique opportunity to be pioneers in ethics. implementation of artificial intelligence at work: “They can use generative AI responsibly, but forcefully, and ensure that the organizations they work for take note,” according to the report’s authors.
IBM researchers found that company policies are the biggest factor likely to encourage women to use generative AI at work. Men, however, appear more motivated to use AI to gain a competitive advantage in the job market and increase their salaries. Additionally, more than half of women surveyed reported using generative AI to enhance their job security.
IBM experts emphasize that “generative AI can only learn from the data it is trained on, and the data tends to reflect existing inequalities.” When organizations encourage women to use gen AI at work, they are able to identify biased results and, IBM researchers believe, begin to close the gender divide.
These findings provide an opportunity for HR leaders and managers to tap into a population of employees who are considering leveraging their jobs as a step toward learning new AI-related skills. “When we think about learning and the excitement around learning, HR can find people who want to reinvent themselves professionally,” says Palmer.
