Organisations preparing for more ethical use of AI
January 16, 2019
RESEARCH REPORT
In brief
In brief
- Accenture published data on the application of AI based on a survey with 330 global business leaders in the Americas, Europe and the Asia Pacific.
- Better approaches, tools and processes will be required for enhancing ability to interpret and explain AI.
- Improved clarity on AI use cases will be needed for provision of a stronger link between benefits realisation and business outcomes.
- Continuous education for leaders and workforce will be required for understanding the ethical implications of AI.
Accenture today published new data on how organisations in Singapore are applying artificial intelligence (AI). The data is part of a global study, titled “AI Momentum, Maturity and Models for Success,” which was commissioned by Accenture Applied Intelligence, SAS and Intel, and conducted by Forbes Insights.
About this research
The survey includes responses from 330 global business leaders in the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, including 25 from Singapore. The Study was conducted in July 2018 (executives in Singapore were surveyed in December 2018).
The study found that in Singapore, 84 percent of executives say they have either deployed AI or AI is under development in their organisations. However, organisations in Singapore believe that the ethical and responsible use of AI has to be further developed. Other results include:
AI oversight is not optional
- Singapore leaders agree they have a lack of transparency into AI decision-making processes;
- 92 percent think not enough is understood about the potential unintended consequences of AI initiatives;
- Although 88 percent of leaders say their workforce is ethically equipped, only 30 percent agree there are processes in place when AI outputs are questionable.
AI’s impact on Singapore’s workforce
- 96 percent of execs demonstrate confidence in AI-based outputs;
- However, 87 percent of them are concerned about the impact of AI on customer engagement;
- Singapore is keeping pace regionally in AI deployment but face challenges in the form of costly solutions, lack of model interpretability and transparency, and weak and irrelevant use cases, amongst others.
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Discussion topics included an AI Fairness Tool, which Accenture pioneered last year. It measures disparate impact, and corrects for predictive parity to achieve equal opportunity, addressing the importance of companies building ethics from the ground up.
These insights were shared for the first time at Accenture’s Responsible AI Roundtable event held today. The panel included Dr Rumman Chowdhury, managing director and global lead for Responsible AI, Accenture Applied Intelligence; Deborah Rhee Santiago, managing director, Digital & Strategic Offerings – Legal, Accenture; and Lee Joon Seong, managing director, Accenture Applied Intelligence, ASEAN.
During the Roundtable, Lee said on the AI Fairness Tool: ”Responsible AI is the practice of using AI with good intention to empower employees and business in order to fairly impact customers and society. Already, 84 percent of leaders have indicated that they have deployed or are looking to develop AI within their organisations. This tool will allow them to engender trust into moving forward with AI-related decisions and to scale their AI efforts with confidence.”
Responsible AI is the practice of using AI with good intention to empower employees and business in order to fairly impact customers and society.
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