Social and Ethical Implications of Digital Transformation: AI in Synthetic Biology
The value of digital transformation is dependent on both technological advancement and human decision making. While in the previous articles I focused on the technology aspect of Digital Transformation, through this article I explore the facets of human decision making in the application of AI in Synthetic Biology.
Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology such as cloud computing, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and big data into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how the companies operate and deliver value to customers.¹ Digital transformation enables organizations to drive innovation and respond to internal and external events in a faster and more affordable way, meeting rising customer expectations, delivering scalability, and increasing levels of business agility.
Digital transformation market revenue in the United States is expected to grow to $490 billion by 2025.²
While digital transformation is enabled through technology, what often gets overseen is the impact of human decision making. For enduring success in a digital world, organizations need to ensure that they understand the synergies between technological and human decision-making as well as the social and ethical implications. The importance of ethics is growing because today, technology gives us more power to act, which means that we have to make choices we didn't have to make earlier.
Ethics is the practice of making a principled choice between right and wrong. It answers about how people should act, not how they actually do. Ethics is not just an important consideration within an organization; it often acts as a differentiating factor in a market where reputation and values are as important as products and services.
As per a 2019 survey conducted by Capgemini, 62% of the respondents placed higher trust in the company when they perceived an AI-enabled interaction to be ethical.³
The consumers who perceived their AI interactions with a company to be ethical placed higher trust in the company spoke to others about the positive experience and were more loyal to the company. When consumers perceive AI interactions as ethical, they become advocates for the experience or company. An ethical AI interaction is one that is transparent, explainable, auditable, and fair.
Biology, in particular, is one of the most promising beneficiaries of artificial intelligence. A major application of AI is in Synthetic Biology. Synthetic Biology is defined as a field of science that involves redesigning organisms for useful purposes by engineering them to have new abilities.⁴ The application of AI would range from investigating genetic mutations that could contribute to obesity in researching samples for cancerous cells. While the concurrence of AI and synthetic biology can help find cures for deadly diseases such as cancer, HIV, and many more, the application includes a complex amount of data that often requires technology to process and produce valuable insights that could improve our health.
Transforming synthetic biology using AI- scientists, and engineers design more effective experiments, analyze their data and attempt to rewire the living organisms and program them with new functions. This AI-led transformation would gradually shift synthetic biology from developing medical applications for therapy to even potentially changing human nature.
The underlying challenge is how do we differentiate efficiency with morality – just because something is more efficient does not often mean that it is morally superior, though often efficiency has a causal benefit to humanity.
Along with the reaped benefits of this transformation, there will be ethical and social concerns for bioethicists:
Security: Leveraging AI technology, scientists can recreate millions of variations of an antibody. They can then assess changes to the molecules of the antibody, determine the most useful ones, predict the efficiency of the antibody variations in the real world, and use the information to further improve the process.⁵ However, the more powerful a technology becomes, the more it can be used for nefarious reasons. This applies not only to robots produced to replace human soldiers, or autonomous weapons but to AI systems that can cause damage if used maliciously. Since we’re dealing with a system that is faster and more capable than us by orders of magnitude, if not regulated and controlled, AI, in this case, could also be used to create variations of molecules which could cause damage and pose a threat as a biological weapon.
Equality: We may witness a situation where genome editing, using AI, will be accessible only to the powerful and wealthy. This could lead to an imbalance in access and dependency on health care and could lead to the creation of subclasses based on the quality of artificially engineered genome.
Safety: The use of AI in genome editing, which started for therapeutic uses, could quickly escalate to using it for non-therapeutic and enhancement purposes, which many views as controversial. Concerns about enhancement should be managed through policy and regulation.
The temptation to obtain power must be matched with a serious reflection on ethical principles such as dignity, fairness, and the common good. As long as there is digital transformation, questions surrounding technology and ethics will grow in importance, and given the growing technological power, more attention towards social and ethical implications will be needed to build a better future.
References:
¹ https://enterprisersproject.com/what-is-digital-transformation
² Statista. (February 28, 2018). Digital transformation market revenue in the United States from 2014 to 2025 (in billion U.S. dollars) [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved April 30, 2020, from https://www-statista-com.ezproxy.babson.edu/statistics/784122/digital-transformation-market-size-in-the-us/
³ Capgemini. (July 5, 2019). What would you do if you perceive an AI-enabled interaction to be ethical? [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved May 06, 2020, from https://www-statista-com.ezproxy.babson.edu/statistics/1035640/consumer-response-to-perceived-ethical-ai-interaction/
⁴ https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/policy-issues/Synthetic-Biology
⁵ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/top-10-ethical-issues-in-artificial-intelligence/
(Link to the original article here)