Opinion piece: on the ethics of a pending AI crisis in business

Abstract

Because of a fear of missing out, organizations today rush out to adopt AI while not understanding what the technology stands for and how to deploy it most effectively. Trusting blindly the promises of AI as the ultimate value-creator, business leaders are unclear about their roles in making AI work for the organization and therefore delegate responsibility of the adoption process entirely to tech experts. In this opinion paper, I argue that this situation breeds fertile ground for a pending AI crisis as organizations will fail to align AI deployment with organizational purpose and in doing so fail to put AI to use in socially responsible and ethical ways. As a result, no real gains are achieved when adopting AI while threats and potential harm to society and humanity in general are fostered.