AI is all the buzz in marketing today. Marketers’ use of AI tools has skyrocketed since ChatGPT hit the market. And it didn’t take long for the lawsuits to follow.
So far, the lawsuits have mainly consisted of copyright infringement against the larger AI companies – Midjourney, OpenAI, Perplexity, and the like. However, there have been the occasional civil suits that have popped up. One company used an AI chatbot to answer questions on their website. When the AI told a customer that he would receive a refund, the company was forced to uphold it, even though it was not actually in their policies.
This is just one example of how AI is both a wonderful opportunity – and a potential pitfall for companies. It’s almost a guarantee that most organizations should plan to incorporate AI into their workflows but as they do so, they need to make sure they adhere to the ethical guidelines their company decides on. With these best practices, you can make the most out of the various AI tools for marketing while maintaining trust, integrity, and legal protections.
Understanding AI Ethical Issues
With great power comes great responsibility. As we’ve seen with the recent lawsuits, copyright infringement is the primary ethical concern with AI. That’s because these LLMs (Large Language Models) are scraping the entire internet for content, with no regard to paywalls or restricted content.
Initially, this was not a problem. ChatGPT was created as a research project with no plans to construct a product or monetize. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has said that the entire team was caught by surprise when ChatGPT took off. But take off it has, and the copyrighted material has been used by millions of people and companies to make a profit – all without appropriate citation or credit. Now, OpenAI and companies like them are facing the consequences. They might be of the mindset to just keep going and see where the gavel strikes, but most businesses don’t have that luxury. Those businesses must remain vigilant about their sources and outputs and ensure their content complies with copyright laws and presents truthful information.
AI is also known for its opacity. LLMs operate in a “black box” space, where sometimes even the developers are unable to trace the logic, and it is certainly not the norm for companies to divulge the information they used to train their models.
Small businesses should take the opposite approach. Clients and consumers have the right to know when they are interacting with AI-generated content. Failure to disclose it can erode trust and damage your brand’s reputation.
Human Oversight
While AI can automate and help with an ever-increasing variety of tasks, human oversight is still necessary – perhaps the most important one. AIs sometimes produce falsehoods or “hallucinations,” where the program creates information that is incorrect, misleading, or just a flat-out lie. These programs have no concept of “truth” and will therefore do their best to complete the task given to them, with no regard for accuracy. Humans must review and edit any AI-generated content to ensure accuracy, relevance, and truthfulness.
Humans also help maintain and improve ethical standards. Humans can detect and correct biases that AI systems inadvertently incorporate. For example, Google had to roll back its AI image generation when it accidentally created images of multiracial and ethnic popes, white supremacist groups, and others. Clearly, human overview is still an important – and necessary – aspect of AI.
Guidelines for Navigating AI Ethical Issues
- Copyright Compliance: Use AI tools that respect intellectual property rights. Adobe made concentrated efforts to only use appropriately obtained materials. Claude is also making strides toward this goal. Implement processes to review and validate AI-generated content for originality.
- Maintain Transparency: Disclose the use of AI in content creations or interactions. Label AI-generated content or develop a policy for use and make it publically available. Although not required, it would be helpful to include an FAQ section about your company’s use of AI.
- Human Oversight: Make sure humans are reviewing, editing, and fact-checking every single piece of AI-generated content. Even when given all the correct information, AI can and does continue to make mistakes.
- Address Bias: Regularly audit AI tools to identify and mitigate biases. Create tests to see what AI tools for marketing are most likely to present or cater to biases. Use diverse data sets to train your AI tools, and make an effort to be as specific as possible when looking for outputs that accurately reflect your target audience.
- Data Privacy: Respect user privacy and comply with data protection regulations. Allow clients to feel in control of their data and respect their wishes regarding the use of AI for their specific content and data.
Navigating Legal and Ethical Challenges
The legal landscape surrounding AI and SEO is still evolving, but staying informed about current regulations is crucial. Recently, several lawsuits against these large companies have highlighted the risks of copyright infringement in AI-generated content. The outcomes are yet to be determined. Right now, our best guess at how AI laws and regulations will unfold is based on the EU AI Act.
The law often moves quite slowly, while technology continues to rocket along at breakneck speed. In the words of Nick Fury, “Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”
At beMarketing, our writers and marketers are keeping up with the changes and ethics surrounding AI. We aim to help businesses navigate AI and SEO as it changes, ensuring your marketing strategies are both innovative and ethically responsible. Contact us today to learn how we can position you as a leader in your industry while sticking to responsible, reasonable AI use.
