The responsible executive's guide to GPT: balancing ethics and innovation

While AI developments hold massive potential for businesses across almost all industries, we must be aware of the risks involved with adopting such innovative technology. Planning how you will address these risks can help your business prepare for the future as organizations worldwide begin to integrate AI solutions into their everyday operations.

This article explores the complex intersection of ChatGPT ethics, security and innovation for businesses. We will also discuss how businesses can use generative AI to their advantage.
 

The Ethical Compass of AI

Generative large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT present businesses with unprecedented ethical challenges. For example, ChatGPT has been known to generate false or misleading content based on its training data. Similarly, AI image generators like Dall-E pose questions about copyright and authorship.

Here are the three biggest ethical concerns related to emerging ChatGPT business practices.
 

      1. Bias and Discrimination

One issue that has made headlines is ChatGPT's biased responses to sensitive topics like politics. While the AI itself has no biases of its own, it will adopt the implicit and explicit biases in the data it is trained on. It cannot understand other perspectives because it has not been exposed to them.

Training an AI using diverse data sets can help reduce the risk of creating a biased algorithm. Additionally, conducting regular audits of your AI system can help you identify and solve discriminatory behaviors.

Solving these challenges could lead to the development of innovative solutions for age-old problems. For example, with the proper guidance, training an AI to recognize and respond to bias could help businesses uncover bias in hiring and other human resources processes.
 

      2. Responsibility and Accountability

When your AI has the power to make decisions for your organization, it presents an unprecedented quandary — who do you hold accountable if something were to go wrong? In other words, is the person who trained the AI responsible for the decision the AI ultimately made?

This issue also brings into question the rationale behind the decisions an AI makes. Generative LLMs like GPT are known to produce “hallucinations,” which are false or nonsensical claims. It can even fabricate information, such as a detailed explanation of an anecdotal encounter between Vladimir Lenin and James Joyce.

Additionally, many of these highly complex systems do not disclose the rationale behind their decisions. This problem is known as the AI “black box.” Researchers are currently conducting neuro-symbolic AI research to understand the large neural networks underlying the AI and open the black box.

Organizations should approach this issue proactively by setting clear rules for who is responsible for what the AI does. Implementing an AI governance framework that explicitly defines each stakeholder's roles and responsibilities helps create a transparent, accountable AI system.

      3. Privacy and Data Security

Because integrating AI and GPT requires enormous quantities of user data, many are raising concerns about user information security.

To maintain customer trust, businesses must be transparent about their policies for collecting and using user data. Businesses must establish robust security measures that prevent AI from accessing sensitive personal data.

Privacy by design is another promising solution. By incorporating privacy protections into the AI development process from the start, you protect your data at every stage. This kind of precaution is especially important for applications like payroll, where user data cannot be anonymized.
 

The Future of Work in the Rapidly Evolving GPT Landscape

In the past, we assumed technology would mostly disrupt repetitive and manual labor. We would automate assembly line tasks, data entry, payroll and more. Recent developments have shown us that this assumption is not quite accurate.

In fact, LLMs are positioned to disrupt both blue- and white-collar employment. For example, ChatGPT can generate high-quality written content rivaling professional copywriters and journalists.

Although industries like education and healthcare, which require face-to-face interaction, may always need human workers, the way these professionals work is likely to change dramatically. Human and AI collaboration combines the strengths of both parties to drive productivity and potentially improve work quality.

These technologies can open new opportunities for human workers. Demand for positions like data scientists, machine learning professionals and AI engineers is likely to grow significantly. In the healthcare sector, for instance, medical practitioners could leverage specialized AI assistants to enhance the level of care they can provide.

As a result, businesses have a responsibility to invest in upskilling and reskilling initiatives. Organizations should create a culture that encourages employees to continue acquiring new skills that will enable them to take on new roles and responsibilities.

The Promise of GPT in Business

Here are some examples of how generative AI can often improve data security, operational productivity and more.

Decision Intelligence

Decision Intelligence (DI) combines multiple technologies — including AI like ChatGPT — to support business decision-making. The extent to which the technology automates the decision-making and execution processes vary depending on your specific needs. Using a closed-loop learning system, DI retrains and improves itself over time, which leads to smarter decisions and greater savings.

Fraud Detection

ChatGPT analyzes large quantities of information within minutes, which makes it useful for identifying suspicious patterns that a human would likely miss. For example, a bank could use ChatGPT to automatically review customer interactions for abnormal behaviors. It could also automate analytical tasks during fraud investigations to save valuable time and reduce operational expenditure (OPEX).

Resource Management

Today's businesses generate and manage large amounts of information as part of their day-to-day operations. Managing this information, however, becomes tricky over time simply due to the quantity of data. ChatGPT can take over knowledge and resource management by organizing and retrieving the resources employees need on demand. Further, it can update business documents and generate new ones as needed, which can streamline business processes and boost your organization's overall efficiency.
 

How We Can Help

Our In-House GPT product by BDO Digital BrAIn helps you jumpstart your organization's journey into the age of generative AI. With built-in data security features, you can integrate ChatGPT into your existing IT environment.

Additionally, by tailoring the GPT instance in your organization's existing MS Azure environment to address your ideal business pace, you can significantly enhance productivity in applications such as:

  • Communications
  • Strategy and planning 
  • Research
  • Creativity and innovation
  • Customer service
  • Software development

You will also gain access to GPT enhancements such as prompt management, enriched chat and token history and simplified chat-sharing capabilities.

At BDO Digital, we strive to future-proof businesses like yours for the digital age with custom machine-learning solutions, AI consulting services and more. When you work with us, we help your business learn to think for itself. Contact us today to speak with a BDO Digital professional.

 

Source: BDO Digital