Nearly half of businesses say they’ll invest more in responsible AI

With great computing power comes great responsibility—at least for 47% of business leaders polled in a recent survey from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Morning Consult.

That’s the portion of respondents who said they planned on investing more in responsible AI in 2024 than they did this year. A similar share said they expected their board to ask for a plan around responsible AI in the next year, or the board has already done so.

The findings are a sign that businesses are waking up to the safety issues around implementing the next generation of AI, according to Diya Wynn, AWS’s responsible AI lead.

“ChatGPT has been exciting folks, but there’s also been a great question about some of its areas of concern and risk,” Wynn told Tech Brew. “The survey findings are showing that just as much as we’re seeing publicly people talk about the concerns and risks, there are a number of organizations [that] believe responsible AI is a business imperative.”

The results also come as debate is heating up in the AI space around the safety of the technology versus bottom-line business concerns, a conflict reportedly at the crux of the recent internal strife at OpenAI (though the survey was taken weeks before that debacle).

But sci-fi-esque quandaries like the potential for AGI are far less of a concern to the average business than matters of data privacy, bias, and explainability. And far from being at odds with the business side, those concerns should be central to any successful AI strategy, Wynn said.

According to the survey, three in five business leaders also agreed that responsible AI will be seen in the future as a “business imperative rather than a ‘nice to have’” (16% disagreed and 24% said they weren’t sure).

According to Wynn, there are a number of paths a company can take to make responsible AI a priority. One is that thinking about technology and trust is already woven into its business mission. Another is that the company has already experienced some kind of public scrutiny over an AI system and are seeking remedies.

“They are prompted to move because they want to make sure that they’re not in the news in the future or not impacting their customers in a negative way after that exposure,” Wynn said.

There’s also a third bucket of companies that recognize the demand for responsible AI, but are hesitant to act and may need an extra push in the form of regulation. Wynn said the prospect of pending legislation in places like the EU or certain states in the US may also be a driver of companies investing to stay ahead of potential rules.

“I would suspect, and again, this wasn’t directly from the survey, but I would suspect from what I’m hearing with customers that this necessity to pay attention to responsible AI is being driven by imminent regulation, as well,” Wynn said.