The regulations are still in development
Regulators and self-regulatory bodies simply cannot keep up with specific regulation and guidance. Decisions by businesses will nevertheless have to be made based on the rules that do exist. The lack of specific AI requirements in law will not mean companies will not be held to account for actions that cause harm. Sitting on your hands waiting for advice is not an option.
Gut reaction is important
It has always been important that people in large organisations speak up when they think something is going ethically wrong in the business they work in. Sometimes people feel that they can’t speak up because they don’t know all the technical details or all about the regulations that might apply.
AI is highly technical and regulation, whilst struggling to keep pace, can still be complex. These things should not preclude ethical people from raising ethical issues and asking questions when they are concerned. This is one of the most powerful protections a business has against doing the wrong thing. You are an expert in ethics by virtue of being a human and your ethical gut reaction to what is happening around you in a business is a valuable resource. Being able to raise and discuss ethical matters effectively is a skill that can be honed.
AI cannot make ethical calls
It is a mistake to think difficult decisions can be made using AI. Many decisions are matters of judgement where humans can reasonably disagree about the best course of action ethically. In these situations a human is required to make a decision because there has to be accountability for it and the consequences of making it. To make a judgement call, when compliance rules aren’t clear or are absent, requires ethical reasoning.
Trust is an increasingly valuable business commodity
The rise of generative AI means that it is becoming increasingly difficult to trust information that is provided to you at face value. Data, pictures, video, audio and written content can be very convincingly created to support fictitious claims and mislead. Just as worrying, things that are true can be dismissed as misinformation that has been created by AI.
In this environment the provenance of information, i.e. who is providing it, is central to how much any information is trusted. To be believed, pharmaceutical companies need to be seen as trustworthy sources who act ethically because they want to rather than compliantly because they have to.
Ethical reasoning is central to AI literacy
The EU AI act places an obligation on pharmaceutical companies to ensure their people are AI literate and a significant component of that is the ability to critically appraise the ethical merits of any AI being employed and mitigate ethical challenges.
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