Many people are worried AI will become the big brother of our lives, watching our every move. However, AI has the power to be a benevolent one;  a protector of sorts. When it comes to big businesses, AI could be a moral watchdog.

In my article on the subject for Thrive Global, I explore how corporate culture and AI can improve morality in big businesses. Here are the following takeaways on how the innovation can do so:

The Culture is Focusing on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Businesses are focusing on becoming more ethical, especially to cater to a Millennial base who believes in supporting businesses who have a positive impact on the world. For example, PwC’s 17th Annual Global CEO Survey, 74% of CEOs believed that measuring and reporting their impact was crucial to long-term success. In 2017 it was reported that nearly 75 percent of large to mid-size companies offer CSR reports and a further 78 percent of the world’s biggest companies use some form of CSR data in their annual financial reports. If companies want to survive, they have to improve problems, not be the cause of them. WIth the focus geared towards more ethical practices, it sets the stage for AI.

AI as the Watchdog

AI can help companies better report, strategize and analyze their CSR policies. IBM and major tech giants Amazon and Facebook have partnered with nonprofit and scientific organizations to form the Partnership on AI to guide AI’s benefit to society. Numerous intelligent and cognizant qualities AI can improve as companies monitor the progress of economic, social, and ethical CSR business models. Here’s how:

Human Bias — In the future, AI will advocate for HR practices by identifying and eliminating human bias in job descriptions and workplace communications.

Business Values — AI systems are now programmed to understand the business value and help organizations reach their goals. 

After these CSR programs are created, AI’s algorithms can help offer CEOs and other business players a strategy by assessing performance markers and setting revenue goals.  AI then optimizes the CSR programs in multiple ways:

Performance Analytics — Performance metrics are crucial to the assessment of a business’ ethical operations. In-depth analytics help companies understand and adhere to regulatory standards, but also global ethics. Measuring big data against the performance data of other ethical companies helps hold companies and their strategies to ethical standards, especially when this data is made transparent.

Management Review — Managers recruit, onboard, and conduct performance management tasks including corrective action and appraisals. Although managers and HR team will still be necessary within offices, AI can be used to keep track of ethical behavior more efficiently. Overall, AI can help expand management review and HR to employees as strong support bases, offering a healthy, human-oriented work culture.

Fraud Detection — Machine learning, a subcategory of AI, detects fraud through techniques like supervised machine learning (SML). In its beginning stages, it can detect fraudulent accounts and cyber activity that appears similar to previous attacks. Currently, neural networking allows SML to identify false negatives and false positives. Companies can use these to detect fraud patterns faster, identify fraudulent accounts easier, and decrease the chance of false results on their own account. In other words, companies can hold each other accountable and analyze if any ethical missteps occur on their behalf.

Integrate CSR Strategy and Initiatives — The data that AI offers can streamline operational efficiencies and create strategies for ethical goals, planning, employee retention, and organizational development among others. Making AI and CSR part of the companies strategic makeup means that the culture and core mission are focused on creating sustainable, long-term ethical solutions for business, workers and consumers.

AI, in essence, can create a world of good especially when programmed and backed by a more ethical business world.