Artificial Intelligence Policies

This month Co-Accounting created our AI Policy for staff.

In this blog we look at why many businesses will need one and what we should be looking to include.

The need

AI is an extraordinary tool we need to have our eyes open to the risks involved. Each section that follows relates to some business risk that business owners would be well advised to consider.

DATA and privacy breaches

Copying sensitive personal information (whether client, supplier, staff, staff candidates) into AI could mean your business is in breach of GDPR, confidentiality agreements you have signed and in the worst case scenario that your business becomes liable for making public data for a third part that it has no right to share.

For this one of the most important functions of an AI policy is to set out which AI platforms may be used and when they may be used.

Business owners will need to do their own due diligence on platforms and define which are safe to use (because data is not shared) and in what circumstances data can be used (some client or supplier agreements may prohibit data being inputted into AI.

Most likely a process will need to be set up whereby team members can apply for AI tools to join the approved list.

We may also want to use the policy to train team members into good practice around inputting sensitive data into AI even on approved sites.

ownership and copyright issues

Staff members may be tempted to input material into AI that is under copyright. Unintentionally team members may be creating material that breaches copyright and opening the door to litigation.

Equally business owners may wish to set out who owns AI generated content and instances when generating AI content is prohibited (eg in training or gaining qualifications).

quality, accountability and incident reporting

Staff will need guidance the potential for degrading the output of their work by use of AI and be made accountability for all output whether the work is assisted by AI or not.

From time to time, there may be AI ‘incidents’, unintentional AI policy breaches, breakdowns with the outputs it creates and protocols and guidance will be needed for reporting and clearing up such incidents.

Team members may be asked by clients, suppliers or colleagues about the AI that has gone into the work they are doing and guidance or rules may be required around disclosure.

Environmental considerations

Business owners and the wider public are concerned about the environmental impact of AI. The policy is also an opportunity to minimise this impact by targeted and conscious use of AI.

Conclusion

In our opinion AI cannot be ignored, companies that do will fall behind. If we are going to be using the tool we need to get good at using it and an AI policy is a way to start eliminating the worst case scenarios of its use.

Numerous templates are available online. For ours we leant on our IT partners Kimbley IT who provided outstanding support.

The policy we have developed is publicly available here: https://co-accounting.co.uk/ai-policy