Companies the world over are hastily adapting to the Green market. According to a 2023 McKinsey report, “Products making ESG-related claims averaged 28 percent cumulative growth over the past five-year period, versus 20 percent for products that made no such claims.” By advertising environmental ethics, a company may bank on the consumer’s graces. A new market may yet be on the horizons: trust.
The recent Horizon-Post Office scandal has brought to public scrutiny the human costs of unfair computer algorithms. Algorithms to support or execute decision-making processes are embedded across industries and are only proliferating.
On the defence, groups across the board are forging a novel regulatory landscape. Ada Lovelace’s recent article points to a firm rubric for adoption. AI Now has recently interrogated the transferability of existing governing practise in the U.S. Food and Drink Administration. The cross-governmental Open Government Partnership continues its crusade for an inclusive digital transformation.
The above Ada Lovelace article rightly points out the necessity for an automated algorithm’s ‘explainability’ to achieve transparent accountability. We can stretch this argument and instead point out its commercial potential.
The rapid commercialisation of AI tools is leading to a volte face in business-consumer relations. Mark Zuckerberg’s recent no-thrills heart-to-heart reviewing the Apple Vision Pro captures this. Under the growing shadow of deepfakes (noting OpenAI’s new video functionality Sora), an increasingly sceptical consumer base will flock to algorithmic assurance. As with the Green market, companies which can successfully exhibit and communicate this trust are expected to capture this embryonic market.
Exhibiting trust is a marketable opportunity. It is this, the promise of better attracting the consumer’s wallet, that will drive private development of fair automated decision-making. The intelligent consumer will learn to be intelligent of fairness, attributing a value to a previously commercially unvalued attribute. By establishing best practice and exhibiting fairness now, private companies can get ahead of this market. The first-mover benefits are yet to be witnessed.
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