What is AI-governance?
There are many speculations and even conspiracy theories about the danger of artificial intelligence. Elon Musk, one of the founding fathers of ChatGPT, even suggested that development be halted altogether until we can get a better grip on it. Many people think this is exaggerated, but even they cannot foresee the impact of AI. Therefore, it is imperative that we regulate AI before we become dependent on it and face unwanted effects. We are happy to tell you more about AI regulation, also known as AI governance.
Perils of unregulated AI
An AI that is not constrained can do a lot of damage. For example:
- Privacy breaches. An AI can track you without you knowing, and create a profile of you from which all sorts of unwanted conclusions are drawn. Based on those conclusions, certain rights are then revoked and denied, for example.
- Manipulation. Communication in words and images is a common way to influence people.
Deep fakes. If your boss asks you in a Zoom call to transfer a million euros to an account in Hong Kong, do you do it? Maybe it looks and sounds very realistic, but is not real. - Discrimination. When you profile people through an algorithm, discrimination is bound to happen. The Dutch childcare benefits scandal is a well-known example of this.
- Loss of job opportunities. Perhaps we should slow down the application of AI until everyone is retrained. Changing the labor market too quickly creates a lot of uncertainty and chaos.
- Problems with liability. Whose fault is it if an AI decides to bring down an overflying plane when an employee gave the green light the fly through? Should you even allow an AI to make such far-reaching decisions anyway?
- Loss of trust. Many people are afraid of AI because they don’t understand how it works. That’s why transparency about your AI processes are very important, otherwise it will cause you to lose or miss out on customers.
Oversight and regulation through the means of AI governance
AI governance refers to anything related to policies, procedures and practices to ensure the responsible use and management of AI, such as:
- Legislation. The EU AI Act will apply in 2026. Take this into account now if you are using or developing your own software, otherwise you will have to change all your processes again by then.
- Regulations and procedures. If all goes well, your organization has already established rules regarding an AI policy. Evaluate that regularly to ensure it stays up-to-date.
- Ethics. An ethics framework provides clear guidelines for the ethical use of AI technology. This entails, for example, that when designing an AI system for recruitment purposes, avoiding bias and ensuring equal opportunity for all candidates are essential parts of the ethical framework.
- Transparency. Transparency in AI processes is important to eliminate fear and uncertainty among users and customers. Transparency is also a requirement in future inspections of AI technology.
- Avoiding bias. AI can be very out of touch with reality if it’s improperly developed and trained. In 2016, the very first AI chatbot Tay (from Microsoft) was deactivated after only a few days because it began to post inflammatory and offensive tweets through its Twitter account.
Regulate your AI-driven software
Soon, AI technology will be an integral part of all your software. Ensure you only use software that is fully transparent about its AI components, so you always know what’s going on behind closed doors.
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