From the Blog: January 31, 2024

Ethical AI: Ensuring the Accuracy of Your AI Content

Whether you care to realize it now, Generative AI is all around us. You’ve likely seen it as the background music in a recent holiday commercial, a social media caption, a company’s virtual assistance chatbot, or even your favorite Snapchat filter.

When used correctly, Generative AI platforms like ChaptGPT, ClickUp, Jasper, and Scribe can help boost creativity, support strategies, or provide valuable data to assist decision-making. But like any emerging technology, Generative AI has its limitations. Unquestioningly trusting its output could result in embarrassing mistakes and the spread of disinformation, which erodes trust and can damage your reputation.

For this reason, many large corporations, universities, and professional organizations are working to put safeguards in place to check (and double-check) AI output. Deloitte surveyed 1,716 business and technical professionals actively developing, managing, or consuming emerging technologies. In their findings, they noted:

  • Executives recognize that Generative AI has the most potential for social good (39%) and the most potential for significant ethical risks (57%).
  • 56% of companies actively utilize a review process to assess ethical standards for existing and new technologies.
  • The top two concerns from leaders surrounding the use of Generative AI are reputational damage (38%) and human damage (27%).

To better adhere to best practices for preventing and managing potential ethical challenges, here are four ways to help ensure the accuracy of any AI content or data you use.

1. Look at the source material.

    The information your AI tools use to generate content should come from a trusted author or source. You can check the source material to see if an author or a credible publication is listed and view the date the original material was published to ensure it’s recent information.

    2. Fact-check, fact-check, fact-check, and then fact-check again.

      Any information pulled from Generative AI platforms should be thoroughly fact-checked before you use it. This includes numbers, names, dates, and other historical data at a minimum. AI is only as good as its sources, and our human eyes can ensure that the facts are facts. You can use tools like Google Fact Check Explorer or PolitiFact to help you with this process.

      3. Proofread.

        Like us, AI content can produce misspellings, grammatical errors, and incorrect or confusing sentence structure. It’s essential to take the time to proofread any AI-generated content, and you can use tools like Grammarly for extra support if you’re unsure. While reviewing the content, this is an excellent opportunity to confirm that it aligns with your brand voice.

        4. Trust your instincts.
        Humans have an eye for quality content. You consume content regularly, whether it’s viewing a billboard on your morning commute, scrolling your social media feed, or surfing the latest sale of your favorite local boutique sent an email about. As a human being, you can view content in a way that an AI bot never will. 

          Important Takeaway

          By having the final word on the content that you create, you’ll preserve trust with your audience and solidify your own reputation as a creator of quality ideas and content.