What does an AI Ethicist do?

Prior expertise establishing and structuring processes and policies is required for an AI ethicist

An AI Ethicist advises on ethical AI practise, guards against prejudice, and unexpected effects, and guarantees responsibility inside the organisation; acts as a mirror between what the culture and principles say and what real-world practises do.

Various points of view

Ethics is more than just making sure all of the regulations and compliance standards are satisfied. It is possible to observe all compliance laws and regulations but still engage in unethical behaviour. AI ethics is not about implementing a technical solution in a system. As a result, an ethicist cannot be pigeonholed into specific professional or academic subjects, such as law, philosophy, or computer science. The required experience rather comes from previous roles that would assist the candidate in having a perspective that can examine the ethical, social, and political elements of AI technology.

Interdisciplinary work

Technical knowledge and expertise in specialist areas such as privacy regulation or machine learning development are advantageous but not needed. An ethicist, like a smart project manager, must first be able to see the big picture of the system and then be able to question the specifics upstream and the repercussions downstream. Ethical values must be integrated throughout a product's lifecycle. Because of this necessity, interdisciplinary work expertise and experience dealing with numerous disciplines in any one capacity are more important than any one specialty for the function.

Governance, Policy, and Process

The capacity to create or question a design flow, as well as create and implement a governance structure to verify that the appropriate controls and loops are in place, is required for this function. Prior expertise establishing and structuring processes and policies is required for an AI ethicist. These methods begin with the question, "Is AI the best solution to this problem?" It includes mentioning a few, data collecting and processing, team organisation, communications, implementation, training, marketing, change management, testing, and monitoring.

Advocacy and public speaking

Experience with public speaking, training, or workshops is also required. These duties necessitate the preparation of information for specific audiences, the continuation of discussions and debates, and the facilitation of trustworthy conditions for open debates. One of the primary responsibilities of an AI Ethicist / Chief AI Ethics Officer is to advocate for ethical and responsible AI. This position requires meeting with customers, facilitating debates and training, and giving public interviews or speeches at conferences; as well as collaborating with policymaking and regulatory agencies, think tanks, industry groups, and other cooperations to identify key best practices and trends. As a result, the candidate must be at ease in situations that most people deem stressful.

Desired background

Finally, jobs or initiatives that provide the candidate with an awareness of the important policy concerns, trends, and opportunities in a certain industry would be a desirable but not needed background. Although not limited to, these could be earned from many professions in industry or academics.