The promise of AI is that it’ll make all of our lives easier. And with great convenience comes the potential for serious profit. The United Nations thinks AI could be a $4.8 trillion global market by 2033 – about as big as the German economy.
But forget about 2033: in the here and now, AI is already fueling transformation in industries as diverse as financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, marketing, agriculture, and e-commerce. Whether it’s autonomous algorithmic ‘agents’ managing your investment portfolio or AI diagnostics systems detecting diseases early, AI is fundamentally changing how we live and work.
But cynicism is snowballing around AI – we’ve seen Terminator 2 enough times to be extremely wary. The question worth asking, then, is how do we ensure trust as AI integrates deeper into our everyday lives?
The stakes are high: A recent report by Camunda highlights an inconvenient truth: most organisations (84%) attribute regulatory compliance issues to a lack of transparency in AI applications. If companies can’t view algorithms – or worse, if the algorithms are hiding something – users are left completely in the dark. Add the factors of systemic bias, untested systems, and a patchwork of regulations and you have a recipe for mistrust on a large scale.
For all their impressive capabilities, AI algorithms are often opaque, leaving users ignorant of how decisions are reached. Is that AI-powered loan request being denied because of your credit score – or due to an undisclosed company bias? Without transparency, AI can pursue its owner’s goals, or that of its owner, while the user remains unaware, still believing it’s doing their bidding.
