The AI Revolution Is Here - Have Businesses Considered the Risks?

Speaking on ChatGPT?in a recent interview with ABC News, Mira Murati, Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI says, “This is a very general technology – whenever you have something so general, it is hard to know upfront, all the capabilities and potential impacts, as well as the downfalls and the limitations of it.”?

The widespread use of AI in the workplace is still in its early stages – few businesses have had the opportunity to fully understand the risk factors involved.?Deploying any new technology can come with a number of risks, and some of these can be explored when considering integrating AI into your business processes.

The risks of AI models for businesses

1.Hiring challenges and the AI skills gap

Hiring for an AI-related role has been increasingly difficult in the past year and hasn’t become easier over time. Companies are mostly seeking software engineers, data engineers, and AI data scientists, which remain particularly scarce, and so to meet this need, organizations need to consider upskilling existing staff.

2.Disruption of business models

Is Google’s lucrative search empire at risk of becoming redundant? The tech giant is sitting on robust AI capabilities that aren’t being rolled out. Reasons for this include the fear of disrupting existing business models, as well as government and regulatory interference. ?

3.Risk around intellectual property protection

It is questionable if large language models are using copyrighted or open-source training material properly and fairly. There are ongoing lawsuits that are debating this issue and ethicalities, which may have implications for the future design and use of large language models, such as ChatGPT.

4.Costs

Businesses that lack in-house skills or are unfamiliar with AI often have to outsource these skills, using smart technologies, which can be expensive and cause a business to incur further costs.

There are also risks of adopting AI models in the work environment, without businesses fully understanding the T’s and C’s, or how to efficiently implement them into their processes.

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In part 1 of 'The AI Revolution Is Here', we discussed what AI leaders were doing differently.?Here are some risks that business owners should be aware of:

The risks of using AI tools in the work environment

●?????Policies and procedures at work

AI is developing at such a rapid rate that businesses may find it difficult to keep up with. Before an organisation can integrate AI into their business processes, there must be policies and procedures in place to govern how their employees safely and correctly make use of it in the workplace. For example, when using generative AI, consider the risk of a cyber-attack: A hacker may be able to deduce the data set used to train the AI model, thereby potentially compromising the privacy of the data. Organizations must clearly and strictly outline the parameters of personal information and sensitive company data that can and shouldn’t be put into the tool.

●?????Integrating AI into business practices

Microsoft has rolled out a premium Teams service that makes use of openAI-owned ChatGPT. Among its capabilities, the service will generate automatic meeting notes and help create meeting templates for its users. While this sounds like an efficient way to save time, businesses may want to consider first understanding the ‘fine print’ – do they know how it really works, does the entire workforce understand the terms and conditions, whose IP address is being used, and how safe is their data and conversations? Businesses may be eager to showcase their agility and innovation by pivoting their operations to meet new demands. However, they must not neglect to seriously think about the unintended consequences.

●?????Data management and governance

When you build an AI solution, you need to collect vast quantities of data and will have to keep it adequately secure, otherwise, your company could face a significant fine. An organization’s ability to skillfully work with data is critical to the success of AI usage and preparedness to manage its ethical implications. There should be skilful data management and governance processes in place, to help an organization mitigate data risks.

●?????Potential inaccuracies, biases, and plagiarism

When using AI tools, there could be a possibility of ideas being too shallow with a lack of substance, wrong analogies, conclusions, or code. The tools are potentially harmful, as language models can learn from the data’s biases and replicate them. Another problem is plagiarism, where image generation tools often plagiarize the work of others or the tool might be paraphrasing its training data - an advanced form of plagiarism.

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A resilient business imagines multiple outcomes. AI has the potential for good and bad, with some companies being more ready for it than others, and workforces still needing to adapt. We also won't know what the unintended consequences are until people start actively using it in their work environment. Unintended consequences in the workplace and business risk factors associated with AI models should be considered in all aspects of governance, risk and compliance. There may be positive or negative consequences that fall outside the ambit of intent. How you prepare for such consequences will determine your ability to impact your organization’s objectives, and if you are ready for the AI revolution.

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Article written by The CURA Content Team