From tech vendors to governments to industry consortia to the Vatican, it seems that every day a new entity is announcing its set of ethical AI principles. While there is some variation between entities’ frameworks, most have coalesced around a set of five principles (though they may go by different names):

On the surface, this is great news, as it demonstrates an awareness of the fact that AI unleashed on the world with little forethought could have disastrous societal and economic consequences. Unfortunately, developing a list of lofty principles and deciding how to interpret and adhere to those principles across your organization are two very different things. For example, fairness sounds like a great goal, but there are at least 21 different definitions of fairness that you can implement in your models. The devil, as always, is in the details.

Marketers and customer experience (CX) pros who are increasingly adopting AI to personalize experiences at scale must consider its potential ethical impact. Otherwise, they risk running afoul of regulations, tarnishing their brand, and alienating values-based consumers who make purchasing decisions based on a firm’s ethical principles and practices.

I plan on diving into these details during my session “Values, Ethics, And Algorithms, Oh My!” at Forrester’s CX North America live virtual experience on Wednesday, June 17 from 12:10 to 12:30 p.m. ET. Please join me, my colleagues, and thousands of marketing and customer experience professionals around the world to ensure that when it comes to the ethics of AI, we actually practice what we preach.

I look forward to “seeing” you there!