Years from now, the 21st century will be remembered as the age of AI. Recent developments in artificial intelligence have become a boon for people worldwide. Today, AI has many different applications. AI is used in mobiles, security systems, cameras, chatbots, etc. However, chatbots, GPT models, and AI assistants are the most common uses of AI nowadays. According to Statista, the global AI market will reach a whopping $190.61 billion in 2024, and around 4 billion mobile phones worldwide will have AI voice assistants like Google Assistant and Siri. As AI becomes more prominent, people have started raising concerns over ethical considerations while using AI applications or software.
AI models are trained on the data available on the internet or accumulated by the developer. So, anytime you use AI, it responds based on the data it has, which can be biased, so it’s the user’s ethical obligation to make sure that the data they retrieve from the AI is unbiased and fair. This is one of the biggest concerns regarding the use of AI.
Usually, people use AI for chatbots and GPT models, both of which respond based on the prompts entered by the people. So, if the prompt seems a bit biassed, the AI model will answer while maintaining the bias. This is one of the top ethical considerations for someone who uses AI. Making sure that the content or answer that comes from AI is unbiased is one of the top ethical considerations while using AI models. Ask the AI model for the data source and evaluate whether your answer is biassed.
Just like bias, fairness is another challenge that AI users face daily. Sometimes, the AI’s response is unfair to a particular group of people, and it’s the user’s ethical obligation to ensure that the AI’s response is fair for every religion, caste, demographic, and race. Again, asking for the data source can be the first step to ensuring fairness.
The absence of fairness and the presence of bias shine a light on yet another ethical consideration to keep in mind. AI models are programmed to respond with the most relevant information based on pre-existing data. Every user should take the result with a grain of salt and fact-check it before publishing or using it elsewhere. At the end of the day, the user is responsible for everything that comes out of the AI model. For this reason, it is an AI user’s ethical duty to ensure that the AI’s response is factually right. Start by asking the AI model how it arrived at its conclusion. IBM reports that around 34% of IT professionals say that their colleagues use some sort of AI application to save them some time. On top of that, 69% of executives believe that the use of AI will generate many new jobs in the near future.
On this note, let’s discuss the biggest threat of AI. People worldwide are afraid that the prevalence of AI can result in high unemployment rates. According to a report by Goldman Sachs, AI can potentially replace around 300 million jobs in the near future. For this reason, people should evaluate the impact of AI on their field and ensure that AI augments human skills, not replaces them altogether.
This shows that people are still unaware of AI’s limitations and problems. A survey conducted in the US in July 2023 states that around 90% of Americans are oblivious to AI’s potential uses and misuse. This is why tutoring people on AI’s potential and limitations is extremely important. Not everybody knows that AI models’ responses and outcomes can sometimes be biassed and incorrect. It is the ethical duty of AI users to educate people so they can use AI efficiently and responsibly.
AI has limitless potential but is only as good as we are. Its potential can be used for the good of society as efficiently as can be used for the bad. Experts and executives are morally obligated to help people understand how to use AI effectively and responsibly. Moreover, it has become really important that people also understand that not everything that comes from AI is true or factually correct. Only by doing these things can we ensure that AI will benefit the human race as it was meant to.
