How Businesses Can Mitigate Risk When Adopting AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow in prominence and importance as businesses across all industries discover new use cases for the technology. However, not everyone welcomes it with open arms, and some are rightfully wary of the risks posed by AI.

During the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global AI Forum event, Jordan Crenshaw, the Senior Vice President of C_TEC at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, talked with Anne Neuberger, the Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technologies, about the threats involved with AI, along with its impact on businesses and future technological advances.

AI Presents Risks and Opportunities for Businesses

Due to its societal, economic, and national security implications, the growing use of AI has been met with mixed emotions by entrepreneurs, global leaders, and the general public. Threats ranging from deep fakes and disinformation to bias risk and job security have caused uncertainty as business owners learn to maneuver the new landscape this technology has created. 

“There's significant promise [and] significant peril,” Neuberger said. “I think there's responsibility across the private sector, ... generators of models, users of models, ... [and] government, to ensure that as we seek to glean the promise [of AI] for our societies, we carefully manage that peril.” 

Despite the risk, Neuberger emphasized the advantages AI can provide for industries like healthcare — including rapid detection for things like cancer, cardiac disease, and childhood blindness — and programming, where AI can remove human error from the equation. 

Security Issues Can Be Mitigated When Businesses Use AI Properly

Though the widespread use of AI comes with risks, businesses can mitigate those threats with proper usage and following best practices. 

Neuberger recommends businesses embed watermarks — either visible or invisible — that state when visual content like videos and images is AI-generated so it’s easily detected. She sees this as a trackable strategy to protect businesses against deep fake technology and teach consumers about AI detection while holding entities accountable. 

Additionally, Neuberger recommends leveraging AI as a resource to tighten existing coding and detect unusual patterns for businesses to prevent cyber disruptions. 

“The tech we all rely on is still not built as secure[ly] as needed, and we see the opportunity to train AI models to help generate more secure code,” Neuberger said. “If we leave it to humans, we may continue to have errors. AI … can help us find and fix vulnerabilities more quickly.”