Responsible AI Management: Evolving Practice, Growing Value
People are increasingly coming to see artificial intelligence as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it promises to enhance individual and business performance, cure diseases, solve environmental problems, and otherwise benefit humanity. On the other, it threatens to perpetuate bias, invade privacy, spread misinformation, and, according to some, threaten humanity itself.
Faced with growing public and legal pressure, some businesses are taking steps to utilize AI in a more socially responsible way. They refer to these efforts as “responsible AI management” (RAIM). This report conveys the results of a survey-based study conducted in early 2023 of RAIM practices at businesses that develop and use AI. This report shows that RAIM creates significant value for the organizations that practice it, but that relatively few are doing so. More organizations may be able to achieve this value by investing in RAIM
The study sought to answer three questions:
The survey results identify fourteen activities that are present in at least some business RAIM programs. They suggest that risk assessment, the building of a management structure, and the establishment of standards (ethical principles, policies) are the most common components of business RAIM initiatives. By contrast, measuring the firm’s RAIM performance, evaluating employees’ RAIM performance, and requiring a company’s suppliers to follow its RAIM policies are among the least common.
The survey responses suggest that businesses are most likely to vest RAIM responsibility in those with expertise in privacy governance. That is perhaps unsurprising given the connections between privacy governance and AI governance. Firms also assign RAIM responsibility to those with data analytics, risk, and ethics expertise. This suggests that organizations may benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach to AI governance.
Respondents clearly stated that RAIM produced substantial value and that it did so in areas important to business strategy and competitiveness such as product quality, trustworthiness, and reducing regulatory risk. Businesses contemplating whether to implement their own RAIM program, and policymakers making the case for RAIM requirements, should find this relevant.