Design a system for AI governance
Each organization has their own guiding principles, but ultimately these principles need to be part of a larger responsible AI strategy to be effective. This strategy should encompass how your organization brings these principles to life both within your organization and beyond.
We recommend establishing a governance system that is tailored to your organization’s unique characteristics, culture, guiding principles, and level of engagement with AI. The tasks of the board should include designing responsible AI policies and measures; attending they're being followed, and ensuring compliance.
To help your organization get started, we have provided an overview of three common governance approaches: hiring a Chief Ethics Officer, establishing an ethics office, and forming an ethics committee. The first approach is centralized, and the others are decentralized. All of them have their benefits, but we recommend combining them in a hybrid approach. A governance system that reports to the board of directors and has financial support, human resources, and authority is more likely to create real change across an organization.
Chief Ethics Officer
Often organizations choose to consolidate their ethics initiatives appointing a Chief Ethics Officer. This option has the advantage of centralized decision-making, so it enables organizations to quickly develop policies around ethics while ensuring there's accountability for each decision. Hiring this public-facing role can also be an effective way to showcase a company’s commitment to engage with AI and other technology in a responsible and trustworthy manner.
However, a Chief Ethics Officer alone may struggle to implement measures across an organization without the support of an ethics office. This drawback leads us to the next option.
Ethics office
The second governance approach focuses on empowering employees across the organization. It involves forming a dedicated ethics team from different levels of the organization that is solely focused on ensuring the ethical principles are being followed by all employees. The ethics office can be independent or part of a broader risk, compliance, or legal team. If it's independent, it can be established without a leading role, but companies often choose a Chief Ethics Officer to head the office.
The key advantage of ethics offices is their ability to implement the policies at scale since they have dedicated team members working at all levels of the company. Ethics offices also prove adept at building a culture of integrity within an organization.
Ethics committee
The last approach brings together a diverse array of outside experts and senior leaders from within the organization to address AI ethics. Ethics committees may even incorporate user groups, ethicists, or psychologists. Generally, they don't have members dedicated solely to ethics.
This form of governance provides an organization with perspectives from people with a wide range of diverse backgrounds and expertise, unbiased opinions from external members, and buy-in from senior leaders across the company.
Next, let's discuss best practices for AI governance, depending on the ownership of the AI model and the role involved.