MIT Sloan Management Review Article on The Regulation of AI - Should Organizations Be Worried?

What happens when injustices are propagated not by individuals or organizations but by a collection of machines? Lately, there’s been increased attention on the downsides of artificial intelligence and the harms it may produce in our society, from unequitable access to opportunities to the escalation of polarization in our communities. Not surprisingly, there’s been a corresponding rise in discussion around how to regulate AI. Do we need new laws and rules from governmental authorities to police companies and their conduct when designing and deploying AI into the world?

Part of the conversation arises from the fact that the public questions — and rightly so — the ethical restraints that organizations voluntarily choose to comply with. According to Edelman’s 2019 Trust Barometer global survey, only 56% of the general public has overall trust in the business community. A Gallup poll of four European countries in 2017 found that just 25% strongly agree that their own company “will always choose to do the right thing over an immediate profit or benefit.”