AI Human Impact: Toward a Model for Ethical Investing in AI-Intensive Companies

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new ethical evaluation model for AI-intensive companies, enabling investors to incorporate AI ethics into financial decisions through specialized metrics and performance indicators.

Contribution

It introduces a novel set of metrics based on AI ethics principles to assess the human-centricity of AI companies, addressing gaps in traditional ESG frameworks.

Findings

Nine performance indicators for AI ethics evaluation

Objective scoring system for human-centered AI companies

A comprehensive model for ethical investing in AI

Abstract

Does AI conform to humans, or will we conform to AI? An ethical evaluation of AI-intensive companies will allow investors to knowledgeably participate in the decision. The evaluation is built from nine performance indicators that can be analyzed and scored to reflect a technology's human-centering. The result is objective investment guidance, as well as investors empowered to act in accordance with their own values. Incorporating ethics into financial decisions is a strategy that will be recognized by participants in environmental, social, and governance investing, however, this paper argues that conventional ESG frameworks are inadequate to companies that function with AI at their core. Fully accounting for contemporary big data, predictive analytics, and machine learning requires specialized metrics customized from established AI ethics principles. With these metrics established, the larger goal is a model for humanist investing in AI-intensive companies that is intellectually robust, manageable for analysts, useful for portfolio managers, and credible for investors.