MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Every Leader's Guide to the Ethics of AI

Until regulations catch up, AI-oriented companies must establish their own ethical frameworks.

As artificial intelligence-enabled products and services enter our everyday consumer and business lives, there’s a big gap between how AI can be used and how it should be used. Until the regulatory environment catches up with technology (if it ever does), leaders of all companies are on the hook for making ethical decisions about their use of AI applications and products.

Ethical issues with AI can have a broad impact. They can affect the company’s brand and reputation, as well as the lives of employees, customers, and other stakeholders. One might argue that it’s still early to address AI ethical issues, but our surveys and others suggest that about 30% of large companies in the U.S. have undertaken multiple AI projects with smaller percentages outside the U.S., and there are now more than 2,000 AI startups. These companies are already building and deploying AI applications that could have ethical effects.

About the Author

Thomas H. Davenport (@tdav) is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, as well as a fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s Analytics and Cognitive practice. Links to his work are online at tomdavenport.com. Vivek Katyal is the global data risk leader and leads the advisory analytics service area in the U.S. for Deloitte.

Learn more about MIT SMR.