Artificial intelligence increasingly powers many real-world applications, from facial and image recognition to language translations and smart assistants. Companies are deploying AI in their operations from frontline services to in-house support functions, to achieve productivity growth and innovation. While AI promises benefits, it poses urgent challenges. Hence, we need to discuss designing ethically with AI.
Key statistics on AI
According to Gartner, 25 per cent of customer service operations will use virtual customer assistants by 2020 (in six months’ time!). Management consulting firm McKinsey says that ‘AI has the potential to deliver additional global economic activity of around $13 trillion by 2030.’ With investment in AI increasing, and its immense ability to impact human and society, perhaps designers are too late to be involved with AI?
Building trust with machines
AI and machines are intertwined with our lives; We are relying on machines to complete our tasks; We allow machines to make key decisions for us; We trust it with our personal data for a service from an app, website, or machine.
As our interactions with machines are becoming invisible, these decisions made should not be based on a biased data set that is sexist, racist, etc. People must be able to engage in it with the confidence that their data shared on these platforms, will be utilised for the right purposes, and will not be judged or penalised. Being transparent on the invisible logic behind these decisions, and setting expectations of what these systems we designed could or could not do, would help to foster trust in using these automated systems.
Amplifying human biases
AI and other emerging technologies have the power to empower and include more people. For example, voice-enabled devices can allow the blind to access the internet while allowing a parent who is carrying a baby to place orders for groceries. Yet, due to limitations with the present technology, AI has excluded people on the ‘edge cases’ instead of providing accessibility.
The present technology is described as Narrow AI–an agent, such as a chatbot, that serves human without understanding the context. This seems worrying as it means that AI will only be as good as the information that we feed it. A biased set of data provided to the machine will return a biased set of analysis from the machine, or worst, an amplification of the biases by the machine.