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Top1. Introduction
Humans are always in search of new tools and technologies to lead a better and productive life. Over the last three industrial revolutions, we have seen a massive shift from muscle power to mechanical power. The advancement in digitization, technology, and data analytics, focuses further on enhancing human capability by exploiting cognitive principles, otherwise known as Artificial Intelligence (AI), as a theme worldwide(Schwab, 2017). John McCarthy, the AI discipline founder, explains that Artificial Intelligence is the “science and engineering of making intelligent machines” (Walch, 2018).
Artificial Intelligence solutions are permeating into every walk of life. Some basic tasks like looking for information in the Google search engine, content writing, drawing to complex activities like seeking digital assistant and Robo advisor from a service provider are powered with AI algorithms. These algorithms are trained and validated based on available societal behavioral data with human ingenuity. While these automated decision-making systems bring enormous benefits to society, those can bring challenges, too, unless handling with utmost care.
There has been disagreement around the scientific definition of humans and their origin. However, the commonly accepted fact is that humans first appeared between 2-3 million years ago(Barras, 2016). Despite evolving over millions of years, humans make irrational decisions and mistakes. Human decisions are colored by the amount of information they have, cognitive ability, the socio-economic condition they belong to, and many more possible dimensions. Similarly, the AI systems built by human endeavor and past societal behavior captured through data can be equally irrational and biased. These irrationalities or biases can appear in the form of infringement of privacy, discrimination, societal exclusion, accident, and rigging political systems(Cheatham, Javanmardian, and Samandari, 2019). After all, humans play a critical role in building these intelligent systems.
The global artificial intelligence market was valued at USD 62.35 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.2% from 2021 to 2028 (GrandViewResearch, 2021). AI is supposed to bring 21% of incremental impact in GDP in the United States of America by 2030(Bughin et al., 2018). Open databases have supported the rapid development of AI algorithms, which led to significant outcomes wherein different stakeholders have benefited to a greater extent. Ntoutsi et al.(2020) talk about the far-reaching AI impact on individuals and society, and their decisions might affect everyone, everywhere, and anytime, entailing concerns about potential human rights issues.
Artificial Intelligence systems can be a double-edged sword. While they bring substantial benefits into the decision-making process, any wrong decisions can lead to loss of life, reputational damage, revenue loss, societal unrest, regulatory backlash, criminal investigation, and diminished public trust (Cheatham, Javanmardian and Samandari, 2019). The problem gets magnified, especially when AI systems are built based on automated learning and deployed at scale principle. The AI mistakes can happen from the ideation of a problem through the design and deployment of the solution. Mistakes can be non-intentional to malicious intent, either exploit market conditions or defame and defeat economically and politically certain sections of society.