Failing To Operationalize Data And AI Ethics

Just a few years ago discussions of “data ethics” and “AI ethics” were reserved for nonprofit organizations and academics. Today the biggest tech companies in the world are putting together fast-growing teams to tackle the ethical problems that arise from the widespread collection, analysis, and use of massive troves of data, particularly when that data is used to train machine learning models, aka AI.

These companies realized one simple truth: failing to operationalize data and AI ethics is a threat to the bottom line. Missing the mark can expose companies to reputational, regulatory, and legal risks, but that’s not the half of it. Failing to operationalize data and AI ethics leads to wasted resources, inefficiencies in product development and deployment, and even an inability to use data to train AI models at all.