Artificial intelligence (AI) has existed for an extended period, but the emergence of generative AI models like ChatGPT, Bard, Scribe, Claude, DALLE 2, and others has significantly boosted its popularity, even among individuals without technical backgrounds. AI has transitioned from its origins in science fiction to practical applications, enabling human-like content creation and the development of autonomous vehicles. While its potential is remarkable, the careless deployment of AI can lead to issues such as discrimination, privacy violations, and other societal harms.
Several governments, including the Biden administration and the European Union, are instituting guidelines and frameworks to ensure the safe and responsible advancement and utilization of AI technologies in response to escalating social concerns and potential risks associated with AI-generated content. This discussion will focus on the social issues raised by conceptual AI models and some effective solutions.
Ethical challenges posed by advanced AI models
The rise of relational AI has triggered a surge in legal actions related to the development and implementation of these technologies. Here are some key ethical concerns influenced by AI advancements.
Bias and societal prejudices
AI models generate outputs based on the quality of their training data. Consequently, flawed training datasets can introduce biases and discrimination, leading to public backlash, costly legal disputes, and reputational damage.
A report by Bloomberg highlighted significant racial and gender biases in approximately 8,000 workplace images generated by three prominent AI systems: Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-Electronic2.
Deepfakes
AI tools are capable of producing highly convincing audio, video, and image forgeries known as deepfakes. These sophisticated creations can be indistinguishable from genuine content and are exploited for persuasion, manipulation of public opinion, and dissemination of malicious narratives.
Intellectual property challenges
Relational AI applications trained on data extracted from online sources have faced allegations of copyright and intellectual property violations.
Regulatory frameworks
Various governments have proposed regulatory measures concerning artificial intelligence, including initiatives by the European Union (EU) and the Biden administration.
EU AI regulations: The proposed EU legislation governing AI usage emphasizes the implementation of biometric identification tools, constraints on consumer manipulation, and enforcement agency oversight to ensure the responsible deployment of AI technologies within the EU. Individuals retain the right to report any breaches of their privacy. The regulations also stipulate potential fines of up to €35 million or 7% of a company’s global revenue for non-compliance.
President Biden’s Executive Order (EO) on AI focuses on promoting the secure, reliable, and ethical development and utilization of AI applications. The order introduces new guidelines for the ethical use of AI, as well as provisions for safeguarding user privacy and intellectual property.
Strategies for Ensuring Safe and Ethical AI Applications
Here are some approaches to mitigate the security and ethical concerns associated with AI systems.
External audits: Companies engaged in AI model development can partner with AI data solutions providers like Cogito Tech for external audits. Cogito’s Red teaming offers solutions for adversarial testing, risk assessment, bias evaluation, and response enhancement.
Licensed training data: Adhering to copyright and intellectual property regulations can prevent issues related to infringement. Cogito offers the DataSum service to address ethical considerations in AI by ensuring compliance with stringent data governance requirements.
Final Thoughts
In recent years, particularly with the rise of conceptual AI, artificial intelligence has revolutionized human interactions with technology. It holds immense potential to enhance business efficiency, foster innovation, and bolster security measures. However, the misuse of AI or the adoption of biased AI models can give rise to various social and security challenges, including bias, discrimination, intellectual property violations, misinformation, and national security threats.
To harness the benefits of AI effectively and responsibly, it is crucial to acknowledge and tackle these obstacles.
