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Key Takeaways AI can help companies grow and become more efficient. Unfortunately, it can also lead to poor ethics when those AI companies don’t tell their clients the truth.
Many companies choose profitability over ethics, but studies show that ethical companies achieve more profit in the long run.
Companies should evaluate both vendors and internal practices to ensure ethical standards are maintained.
While AI can improve businesses, it also brings ethical challenges — like transparency, bias and privacy — that require human oversight.
Artificial intelligence is making headlines again today, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. Recently, a PC Gamer article about my industry last month grabbed my attention.
Sam Udotong, the co-founder of Fireflies.ai, a young company with a $1 billion-plus valuation, admitted in a LinkedIn post that their “Talk to Fireflies” AI-generated meeting companion app was initially nothing more than the two co-founders frantically typing notes and hurriedly sending them back to clients at $100 a pop.
Apparently, the young entrepreneurs earned enough to pay their $750 monthly rent before deciding that moving to a fully automated system would increase earnings and profitability. Such a seemingly innocent tactic may appear like an underdog startup story, but like others, I see the story from another perspective with negative ethical implications.
Related: Ethics in Entrepreneurship: Learning from Elizabeth Holmes’ Lies
Which comes first, profitability or ethics?
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