Can we use AI ethically, and what impact could it have on a firm’s culture? Those are the questions that the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (CCAB) aimed to answer through its two podcast specials on the subject.

The CCAB Ethics Group, chaired by Professor Susan Smith (ICAEW Fellow and member of ICAEW’s Education and Training Board), is exploring how the profession can continue to engage with the huge potential benefits provided by AI tools while complying with the fundamental ethical principles that govern the profession.

The CCAB Ethics Group is planning to publish a draft Statement to the Profession on the ethical use of AI, along with a series of AI ethics case studies, to promote engagement and consideration of the ethical issues associated with AI tools. These drafts, and the profession’s response to them, will be discussed at a forthcoming webinar in autumn.

Addressing ethical blind spots

Guests on the two podcast episodes include Smith, ICAEW’s Director of Trust and Ethics Laura Hough, former Managing Director of the Chartered Bankers Institute and AI and ethics specialist Dr Giles Cuthbert, and organisational psychologist Wieke Scholten.

“There's an absence of a sense of responsibility when we start to look at the world of AI,” Cuthbert observes on the podcast. “There's this view that somehow we can have a sort of ethical bypass when we're looking at AI. We look at this and see this manifesting itself in terms of how people behave online.”

Governance needs to adapt to AI as the tools develop, and boards and leadership teams need to understand the purpose of the tools, how people are using them, intended use within the organisation and the safeguards that are in place, said Smith. “For example, we've heard risks around potential client data or internal data. Is it permitted to load it into a publicly available tool? Probably not. So it's about being mindful, but also making sure that employees are aware and are appropriately trained.”

Across the two episodes, the panels discuss the biggest ethical issues that AI raises and how to address them, how to shape organisational culture around AI, and how transformative AI could really be.

“Always remember that we might talk about artificial intelligence, but it's very real – it's operating in the real world and it's also not terribly intelligent,” Cuthbert said. “It follows commands, it looks for goals, so don't set expectations which it will never be able to deliver.”