02 Tech Trend

A movement for responsible, ethical AI will begin with governance that respects rights and values

Adoption of AI is a once in a generation shift that is at the intersection of innovation and trust. Yet, 76% of organizations don’t have comprehensive AI policies in place. There is general agreement that we need regulations/policy and industry self-policing and governance to mitigate the risks from GenAI. However, nuance is needed in areas like IP infringement, where bits of existing works of original art are scraped to generate new digital art. We must also ensure that consumers have access to and control over their data in the spirit of the recent EU Data Act. With the rising importance of AI systems, available public data will soon hit a ceiling and high-quality language data will likely be exhausted before 2026. Organizations need to shift to private and/or synthetic data which opens the possibility for unintended access and usage.

There is plenty that organizations can do on their own. Leaders must commit to transparency and trustworthiness around the development, use, and outcomes of AI systems. For instance, in reliability, addressing false content and unanticipated outcome should be driven by organizations with responsible AI assessments, robust training of LLM’s to reduce the chance of hallucinations, sentiment analysis and output shaping. In 2024, we will see companies of every size and sector formally outline how responsible AI governance guides internal development, application, and use of AI. Until tech companies can credibly show they are trustworthy, you can anticipate governments creating more policies.

See reflections from Vijoy Pandey, Senior Vice President of Outshift by Cisco, on AI protections and policies amid growing data asymmetries.