IBM: Responsibility for AI ethics has shifted from tech to broader executive champions

Source: IBM. Cover for the AI ethics in
action: An enterprise guide to progressing
trustworthy AI report.

A new IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) study* has revealed a shift in the roles responsible for leading and upholding artificial intelligence (AI) ethics at an organisation. When asked which function is primarily accountable for AI ethics, 80% of respondents pointed to a non-technical executive, such as a CEO, as the primary "champion" for AI ethics, a significant uptick from 15% in 2018.

The global study also indicated that despite a strong imperative for advancing trustworthy AI, including better performance compared to peers in sustainability, social responsibility, and diversity and inclusion, there remains a gap between leaders’ intention and meaningful actions. The study found that:

Business executives are now seen as the driving force in AI ethics

CEOs (28%) – but also Board members (10%), general counsels (10%), privacy officers (8%), as well as risk and compliance officers (6%) - are viewed as being most accountable for AI ethics by those surveyed.

While 66% of respondents cite the CEO or other C-level executive as having a strong influence on their organisation’s ethics strategy, more than half cite board directives (58%) and the shareholder community (53%).

Building trustworthy AI is perceived as a strategic differentiator

Organisations are beginning to implement AI ethics mechanisms. More than three-quarters of business leaders surveyed this year agree AI ethics is important to their organisations, up from about 50% in 2018.

At the same time, 75% of respondents believe ethics is a source of competitive differentiation, and more than 67% of respondents that view AI and AI ethics as important indicate their organisations outperform their peers in sustainability, social responsibility, and diversity and inclusion.

Many companies have started making strides. In fact, more than half of respondents say their organisations have taken steps to embed AI ethics into their existing approach to business ethics.

More than 45% of respondents say their organizations have created AI-specific ethics mechanisms, such as an AI project risk assessment framework and auditing/review process.

Ensuring ethical principles are embedded in AI solutions is an urgent need

However, progress is still too slow. More surveyed CEOs (79%) are now prepared to embed AI ethics into their AI practices – up from 20% in 2018 - and more than half of responding organisations have publicly endorsed common principles of AI ethics.

Yet less than a quarter of responding organisations have operationalised AI ethics, and fewer than 20% of respondents strongly agreed that their organisation’s practices and actions match (or exceed) their stated principles and values. 

Bias mitigation

Sixty-eight percent of surveyed organisations acknowledge that having a diverse and inclusive workplace is important to mitigating bias in AI, but findings indicate that AI teams are still substantially less diverse than their organisations’ workforces: 5.5 times less inclusive of women, four times less inclusive of LGBT+ individuals and 1.7 times less racially inclusive.

“As many companies today use AI algorithms across their business, they potentially face increasing internal and external demands to design these algorithms to be fair, secured and trustworthy; yet, there has been little progress across the industry in embedding AI ethics into their practices,” said Jesus Mantas, Global Managing Partner, IBM Consulting.

“Our IBV study findings demonstrate that building trustworthy AI is a business imperative and a societal expectation, not just a compliance issue. As such, companies can implement a governance model and embed ethical principles across the full AI lifecycle.”

According to IBM, the time for companies to act is now. The study data suggests that those organisations that implement a broad AI ethics strategy interwoven throughout business units may have a competitive advantage moving forward, the company said. Recommended actions for business leaders in the study include:

- Taking a cross-functional, collaborative approach to ethical AI

- Establishing both organisational and AI lifecycle governance to operationalise the discipline of AI ethics

- Taking a holistic approach to incentivising, managing and governing AI solutions across the full AI lifecycle

- Creating an ecosystem with third parties to establish “ethical interoperability”

The IBM Institute for Business Value is the thought leadership think tank for IBM, producing research-backed, technology-informed strategic insights that help leaders make smarter business decisions.

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*The IBV study, AI ethics in action: An enterprise guide to progressing trustworthy AI, surveyed 1,200 executives in 22 countries across 22 industries to understand where executives stand on the importance of AI ethics and how organisations are operationalising it. The study was conducted in cooperation with Oxford Economics in 2021.