Invest in AI’s ethical future

I spent a recent Saturday morning talking to a group of grade school kids about artificial intelligence. Many of them had never coded before, let alone heard of AI. During the session, one exercise required them to come up with ideas for how the AI they create would be used in the real world. I was struck by the kids’ genuine interest in creating AI solutions that would help people, rather than divide them. I left that classroom with renewed faith in the future of innovation — especially if industry can extend technology-focused career opportunities to people from different backgrounds and with fresh perspectives.

As the employee and public response to Google’s Project Maven illustrated, the need for ethical AI in the world is real, immediate and essential to making sure interactions with technology actually mitigate potential risks, help people and improve work. A key challenge for industry is figuring out how to move the global conversation away from AI as a threat to human jobs and safety, and toward cementing AI as an ethical complement to human ingenuity. In short, businesses need to be honest about AI’s impact on the global economy while transparently addressing public concerns about the technology.

Today’s digital literacy opportunities mostly exist outside the realm of regular education. Several programs manifest as extracurricular opportunities pursued by kids or early-career employees who are already interested in technology — and in a position to spend money to learn new skills. These opt-in courses help younger generations of people adopt necessary computational thinking and wider problem-solving, analytical and creativity skills needed to work with AI and other emerging technologies. That is precisely why they need to be accessible to more people.

Companies also need to invest in proactive retraining of technical and developer workforces to close digital skill gaps, diversify talent pools developing the technology and boost ethical AI literacy. Specifically, business leaders need to empower executives and human resources with the tools, data and space to understand the evolving skill sets needed to work with AI in an ethical way.

Companies should think critically about how to convey to current employees and future workforces the massive potential and exciting opportunities to work alongside AI. And, most importantly, AI leaders need to call on global industry and governments around the world to incorporate ethical practices into staff training throughout ranks — and hold them accountable once the commitment is made.