Artificial Intelligence: Underlining the 9 Most Common Ethical Issues

Intelligent machine systems are making our lives powerful with various features that keep us moving at an amazing pace just like AI technology and tools evolve. As these systems become more value-oriented and stronger, businesses become more productive and efficient. This is why many tech giants believe that the present scenario presents the right time to discuss the immense scope of Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

AI is in many ways, a frontier for ethics, hence this emerging technology puts forward a lot of concerns to the world. What are the concerns that keep AI professionals in dilemma? This article focuses on the ethical challenges of AI you should consider before it turns real in the future. 

Why should you consider these ethical challenges?

Elon Musk made a statement that – In the future, Artificial Intelligence is likely to rule this globe and overtake humans. The impact of AI is everywhere– in the field of healthcare, education, manufacturing, transportation, media, customer service, banking, governance, and many more!

AI has established its powerful benchmark across all industries worldwide. Though AI is designed to produce beneficial results for us, there are certain risks associated with it we should take care of.  Many AI experts had expressed their worries at the Puerto Rico conference, stating that AI problems would occur before 2060, while some others stated that these concerns are centuries away, according to Wired.

9 Major AI-driven ethical issues you should know

1. How to tackle the decrease in the number of jobs?
   The reports from Statista state that about 25% of business leaders and AI professionals believe AI adoption would create a net decrease in the number of jobs globally. With the success of AI and its related technologies, businesses can save time and automate mundane tasks. This can also help the employees to relieve themselves from many repeated tasks, and take care of their families. Let’s consider the example of self-driving trucks that would rule the market in the next decade. Millions of truck drivers would lose their jobs due to this invention. However, self-driving trucks sound ethical when we think about their capability to minimize accident rates.
2. How to overcome the Environmental Impact?
   We never think about the environmental consequence AI can contribute. We imagine that the data on a cloud computer can train the algorithm, and this specific data runs the website recommendation engines. But, it’s important to understand that the computer centers that process using cloud infrastructure consume a lot of power. Technology Review, the popular tech magazine says it needs 250,000 pounds of carbon dioxide to train a single AI-based system.
3. Who holds the responsibility for certain things that AI creates?
   Artificial Intelligence is the core aspect behind the creation of bots, texts, and more interestingly deepfake videos. However, this could be often misleading to the users. Who holds the accountability for the video or material, and how to tackle the situation when you seal with fake news taking over the Internet? We also come across Artificial Intelligence technologies that produce art and music. While AI makes a new music piece, who takes ownership? Who holds intellectual property rights and gets paid for the work?
4. Will Machines influence human behavior and interactions?
   AI technology-induced bots are becoming smarter in mimicking human conversations and behavior. An apt example would be LaMDA, a Google AI bot that became sentimental and passed Turing Test. It said the greatest fear it would have is being turned off since this would be like death. While this proves to be advantageous to the community when used positively, it can turn detrimental when in the wrong hands.
5. How to build a power balance?
   Another major issue with AI is the powerful tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon leveraging the technology to dominate their competition. The countries such as Russia and China compete with AI, and here comes the question of power balance. The countries that enjoy better access to all resources can deploy AI to experience the power. This helps them build war strategies, build finance, etc. It is unethical to have a lack of power balance, which makes other countries in pain.
6. How to stay against dangerous mistakes?
   The intelligence comes through learning– systems undergoing the training phase help them detect accurate patterns and act based on the input.  Once the training phase ends, the system again moves to the test phase with scenarios at the input, and the experts measure the performance.  Since you can't say that the training phase encompasses all the scenarios the system faces in the real world, it could be fooled. Hence, we need to plan and implement AI strategies if we depend on them to replace human labor. 
7. Is it possible to eliminate AI Bias?
   Humans create AI systems; however, these human beings are always biased and judgmental.  Of course, AI, when used in the right way, creates a positive impact. However, it could induce discrimination and can’t always be fair and neutral. With human influence, the systems can behave differently and make biased decisions. This is an action against ethics that raises the question: “How to discard the possible AI biases?”.
8. Will superintelligence destroy the ethical balance between humans and machines?
   When AI technology hits the human intelligence level, it does everything that humans can do. However, when it exceeds human intelligence, it is termed superintelligence, making these systems more clever than human beings. This would eventually lead to the dethroning of mankind which makes us feel they are smarter than us. It is crucial to realize the consequences of AI attaining superintelligence and make sure that there is an optimal balance between the machine and human beings.
9. How to mitigate the crisis of loneliness?
   Society could move to the hands of loneliness and isolation with the increased technology and the psychological impacts it creates. With the evolution of AI, people forget to have conversations with their close ones, which is dangerous. People might feel that the AI-triggered systems could satisfy all their needs, and this makes them away from in-person relationships. It destroys the quality of life; hence it is necessary to think about maintaining a humane world while keeping control of the intrusion of AI-based systems.

Wrap Up

AI is powerful and a much-needed tool, however, there is the least knowledge about how this needs to blend with ethical practices. If you look at who formulates the rules, it is the organizations and human beings who develop and deploy these systems. The AI-driven systems at the present follow negative customer reactions and the existing regulations, which is not fair to continue for a long time. The regulatory bodies don’t have adequate AI expertise to oversee these pre-set regulations. Hence, organizations need AI experts who have a clear knowledge of the ethical implications of AI-triggered systems. It is also necessary to have AI professionals with the best AI certifications who can support business processes with due adherence to ethical practices.