As the wonders and perils of artificial intelligence begin to permeate our lives, Luciano Oviedo, Founder and CEO of tech start-up Tempugo WAITX, and Professor Sotirios Paroutis of Warwick Business School share the why, what, and how of their Social Impact Strategy Analysis (SISA) strategy tool – a flexible tool for emerging technology innovators and users to investigate social impact at a number of levels, from individual communities to the society.
Evaluating the Social Impact of Your AI Strategy, a CoBS Research Pod. Related research: Knight, E., Daymond, J. and Paroutis, S. (2020) “Design-led strategy: how to bring design thinking into the art of strategic management”, California Management Review. Oviedo, L.C., Paroutis, S. and Smith, M.A. (2020) “So, you think you have an AI strategy? Think again”, Industrial Internet Consortium paper.
Digitally-enabled, AI technologies are double-edged: they create significant challenges for business and society, as well as provide unprecedented opportunities for growth and prosperity.
In this context, there are a number of good reasons for organisations to integrate social impact assessment for technologies:
- To fulfil a corporate duty to make a positive impact on society,
- To tie them in with corporate purpose and a social contract,
- To respond to consumer demands for greater ethical and social responsibility,
- And to mitigate risk.
The issue for many organisations is a glaring gap in their strategy toolkit, limiting their ability to make social impact evaluation a proactive part of operations, and the creation and development of products and services.
This is where the Social Impact Strategy Analysis (SISA) strategy tool developed by the authors comes into play, assessing plausible systemic risks and benefits associated with AI technologies and related products and services, and across a range of social factors such as environment, energy, and society – including ethics, economics, gender, culture, and language.
AI Strategy: Evaluating its Social Impact
Learn & Do objectives:
- Understand the importance of measuring the impact of AI and digital technology on your stakeholder ecosystem.
- Identify why and how your company should measure the social and environmental impact of your technology.
- Map out and set up a process for implementing impact measurement for your AI strategy.
The 3 Ps in a CoBS Research Pod
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- Download a related research pod: “Setting objectives and strategy for corporate giving“.
Learn more about the Council on Business & Society
The Council on Business & Society (The CoBS), visionary in its conception and purpose, was created in 2011, and is dedicated to promoting responsible leadership and tackling issues at the crossroads of business and society including sustainability, diversity, ethical leadership and the place responsible business has to play in contributing to the common good.
Member schools are all “Triple Crown” accredited AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA and leaders in their respective countries.
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- Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
- Warwick Business School, United Kingdom.
