ECA News Compass #12: Privacy Week, 'AI washing', eCommerce best practices...

Welcome to the ECA Compass?

We recommend weekly news and headlines from a broad range of topics at the intersection of AI and society, technology, law & regulation, business and online retail.

23-30 January

Topic of the week: Privacy!?

Google Update Reveals AI Will Read All Your Private Messages

Google is planning to upgrade Messages with a Bard extension, meaning its AI model will be able to access your private messages for training purposes in order to improve its tailored responses. Your tone of voice, message content and private information.?

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€32 Million GDPR Fine for Amazon France Logistique

Amazon France Logistique incurred a €32 million GDPR fine from the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) for implementing an overly invasive system to monitor employee activity and performance.

Op-Ed: Is There a Future for Web Analytics?

We especially enjoyed reading this LinkedIn article by Brian Clifton, sharing interesting insights about benign data, website consent optimisation, and privacy policies. “However, it is a myth that web analytics is only valuable if you profile individuals i.e. track everything that a single person does on your site (first party data) and where they go online before/afterwards (3rd party data). It didn't always look like that. Benign data does exist - and it is just as valuable imo.”

AI

UK government sets out 10 principles for using Generative AI

Summary: https://realworlddatascience.net/viewpoints/editors-blog/posts/2024/01/22/gen-ai-framework.html ?

Whole framework: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/generative-ai-framework-for-hmg/generative-ai-framework-for-hmg-html ?

Among them, we highlight:

• Principle 1: You know what generative AI is and what its limitations are.
• Principle 2: You use generative AI lawfully, ethically and responsibly.
• Principle 3: You know how to keep generative AI tools secure.
• Principle 4: You have meaningful human control at the right stage.
• Principle 7: You are open and collaborative.

Human-centered and Ethical AI: A foundation for Board AI Governance

Companies are adopting generative AI for tasks such as content summarization, coding, content generation, and customer engagement.?

However, AI usage comes with risks. It can be unreliable for decision-making due to biases and limitations in data and algorithms. Additionally, it poses cybersecurity risks and opportunities, along with impacts on the workforce and society. AI should be integrated? into the business strategy, balancing risks and opportunities, and establishing? an ethical code of conduct for its use.

AI & Policy

How CIOs can overcome ‘AI-washing’ while vetting vendors

”AI washing is the term to describe vendor marketing that makes false representations or exaggerates a solution's AI capabilities.”

Companies using AI solutions or depending on other tech organisations that misinform or exaggerate about their capabilities (such as bias, performance or harmful content) should validate continuously their statements so as to avoid committing AI washing.?

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UK government to publish ‘tests’ on whether to pass new AI laws

The UK government plans to set criteria for implementing new laws on AI. Unlike other regions with stricter regulations, the UK is taking a cautious approach, emphasising voluntary commitments from AI companies. The government's response to a white paper suggests distributing regulatory responsibilities among existing entities.

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AI & Ethics

This tech exec quit his job to fight Generative AI's original sin

Ed Newton-Rex, former TikTok AI designer, left the industry due to ethics concerns and founded Fairly Trained, a non-profit organisation. It offers a certification program to identify AI companies that license their training data. The AI industry now has its own version of those “fair trade” certification labels you see on coffee. So far, nine companies have received the certification.

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Personalised AI nutrition: Qina launches guide for ethical application personalised?

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Precarious conditions of AI ‘ghost workers’ revealed by Google termination of Appen contract, union says

“Google has ended a multimillion-dollar contract with an Australian company that helps train artificial intelligence using contractors across the globe, in a move the union said reveals the precarious employment conditions of the unseen “ghost workers” who train artificial intelligence tools.”?

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Further reading:?

Humans still cheaper than AI vast majority of jobs, MIT finds:

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eCommerce?

Gen Z Consumers Are D2C Brands’ Best Customers

The PYMNTS Intelligence report drew from a survey of more than 3,500 U.S. consumers in October to understand shoppers’ choices and behaviours when they make purchases online. The results revealed that for digital shopping, Gen Z consumers were the most likely to want to buy directly from a brand and the least likely to prefer shopping via merchants’ online stores. Specifically, 43% of Gen Z said they definitely or probably prefer a brand’s own online store.

Omnichannel and customer service lessons learned from store ‘front day’ at Ikea

Cristina Rutgers-Astolfi , Global Head of Analytics at 宜家 Customer Support, shared her positive experience from a recent "front day" at the Click and Collect department in an Ikea store.? She said that witnessing the digital solutions in action was a game-changer and she was also highly impressed by the many products customers order online and then collect at the store, especially with Ikea’s diverse range of new and affordable products.

Future-proofing your e-commerce strategy

Virtual try-ons, live chats and streamings, AI for website experience improvements… “. This is the year of clientcare”, as Jerry Wang , Americas director of e-commerce at Rimowa, states for Vogue.

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Past news (not summarised):?

Created Not Curated: Why The Future Of Retail Personalization Will Be ‘Just For You’

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2023/12/07/created-not-curated-why-retail-personalization-is-just-for-you/?sh=6012fdf7530d ?