Thérèse Rottner, IMBA participant at IE Business School, puts the spotlight on the rapid rise of AI use across sectors and how employees and society can cope with the change – for the benefit of business and also the common good 

Keep the AI Eye on the Prize: How humans can interact with AI to ensure the common good by Thérèse Rottner.

As businesses, countries and individuals contend with where AI truly fits within their processes, interests and daily lives, the common good can often be seen as a secondary factor or a delightful unintended consequence of our AI efforts. Instead, the common good should be seen as a starting or turning point.

Ultimately, if we are to strive for a safer, more stable and sustainable world that everyone can benefit from, we should use the common good as our compass to shape individual decisions, drive social initiatives and steer corporate strategies with the power of AI.

A rollercoaster of a relationship: The 5 stages

Before we dive into how humans have already interacted with AI to ensure the common good, we should first remind ourselves of our turbulent and accelerated relationship history with AI. The success of AI occurred almost overnight, marking a clear honeymoon period. Indeed, ChatGPT captured the attention of 1 million users in only 5 days. We then faced the next stage of any relationship, uncertainty, where growing global scepticism raised some key questions. Will AI take over all our jobs? Can we trust AI? Is it safe? Can we really control it?

The third phase of adjustment would prove to be critical. With the introduction of regulations, formal policies and ethical guidelines, companies and countries sought to mitigate the perceived risks and fears of their employees and citizens. This was, and still is, no easy task for politicians and business leaders alike as setting guidelines on an exponentially evolving technology might often seem futile.

The fourth stage, acceptance, marks a shift as AI became integrated within our lives from chatbots and digital agents to educational support tools. Given the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in AI, it is evident that this relationship will be a long one and that the fifth stage of a relationship, commitment, has been reached. But commitment does not signal the conclusion of a relationship. In fact, it is only the beginning.

To make the matter more complex, whilst these relationship stages may have been achieved at a macro country and business level, the reality of an individual’s relationship with AI is unique and may be independent of external factors. As individuals wrestle with what AI means for their jobs, their families and their futures, it is imperative that those with the understanding, knowledge and capacity to shape the future of AI are committed to securing the common good.

Many are still stuck with uncertainty or contending with AI adjustments in their lives. Ultimately, trust in AI will be the pivotal to its success and importantly the most human factor in these efforts.

AI has proven itself to be a powerful ally

We do not have to look far to come across cases where AI has directly contributed towards significant progress for society, humanitarianism and sustainability. AI has supported humans in their most vulnerable moments. The UN and IBM Watson have partnered together on an AI project which aims to improve aid deployment in the wake of natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. In addition to this, AI is also a proactive resource which has helped to predict the most affected potential areas to ensure that communities are given more time to evacuate if they are in high-risk.

Within the health field, AI has accelerated medical research, helped to reduce the production time of vaccines to combat a global pandemic [‘mRNA and Artificial Intelligence for Advanced Vaccine Innovation’, Pfizer Website, accessed on 7^th May 2025]. It has also detected diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s in their early stages via pattern recognition in medical imaging and data analysis provides another example of how AI is improving people’s lives.

As the world contends with a growing population and limited resources, AI has provided valuable insights for how to maximise precision agriculture, thus avoiding crop losses, reducing water wastage and reducing the volume of pesticides that can be harmful to consumers and costly for farmers [Robert C. Brears, ‘Precision Agriculture, AI, and Water Efficiency: The Future of Farming’, Medium, 3rd May 2023]. AI is helping to combat climate change by helping material scientists discover metal organic frameworks (MOFs) for carbon capture. In the face of increasing urbanization, AI has also helped to develop smart planning for urban environments, ensuring a better quality of life due to increased accessibility, reduced traffic and usage of sustainable energy sources.

Finally, AI has been consistently used to promote advanced personalized learning that can improve accessibility for students of all abilities. The democratization of AI has meant that individuals can now seek basic legal advice and mental health support instantly or even develop their own businesses through low-code and no-code solutions that ultimately serve to equal the playing field within business. These are only a shortlist of how AI has been used to advance the common good in recent years. As the LLMs and forces behind AI becoming increasingly powerful and intelligent, the potential for impact only grows.

Tech Giants are making strong headway

The tech giants have carved out specific units around AI for the common good with Microsoft development of an ‘AI for Good Lab’ focusing on AI for Earth to target climate change and conservation, Accessibility to support disabled communities and Humanitarian to focus on refugee assistance and natural disaster relief. Similarly, Google has its own ‘AI for Social Good’ initiatives. AI research and development organizations themselves have also started to take responsibility for the Pandora’s Box their work has unleashed. Indeed, OpenAI is creating advanced tools to research how to make their AI more centred around ethical, and ultimately human, principles of fairness, trust & transparency.

Whilst these efforts should be applauded, it is vital that they are not seen as being separate to their ‘standard’ offerings, and that their learnings and insights are incorporated across business units and shared globally. This is where a coalition-based approach comes into play. A good example of cross-organizational collaboration between business and global society includes the AI for Good Global Summit convened by the United Nations’ ITU branch. These conversations have a clear aim of ensuring AI solutions are used to work towards its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and serves to connect influential and local minds in these vital conversations.

Money makes the world go round, especially for SMEs

Whilst a CEO may have a strong willingness to support the common good, the quest for a healthy balance sheet in the face of high competition may often overrule their best intentions. If there is no financial sense, business motivation or social pressure to use AI to support the common good, then we cannot blindly expect CEOs and community leaders across the world to promote this usage. Whether it is a question of maximizing revenues or minimizing costs, profitability will remain an important part of the equation.

The good news is that AI’s ability to bolster efficiencies and productivity often lends itself to optimizing businesses and driving the common good, but businesses should be recognized for their efforts to creating a more sustainable and secure world for all. For anything to stick, incentives are vital. Aligning common good with profitable business ventures will be fundamental to ensuring the longevity and commitment of today’s powerful companies.

AI mirrors humanity – the good, the bad and the ugly

Whilst we can attribute advancements to AI, we must not overlook the very human decisions, ideas and choices that directed and guided this new form of intelligence. Many observers see AI functioning as a mirror that reflects our own biases and values. As such, we must adopt an introspective approach to developing AI solutions, which is where the application of ethics come to play a major force for good.

Indeed, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed the OECD AI Principles that advocate for human-centered values and fairness, inclusive growth, transparency and explainability, robustness and safety, and accountability. Signed by 47 countries, ethical guidelines such as these or Microsoft’s Responsible AI initiative can help pave the way forward to striving for an inclusive technology.

Demystifying AI through education

If we want people to support the common good, we must discern their comfort and knowledge of AI itself. Whilst AI has been a topic across social media, blogs, news, TV, we need to strive beyond mere awareness. A Samsung survey in Europe reported that 15% of people understand how to use AI in their daily lives, but 90% claim some knowledge of it. We cannot be lethargic in ensuring that businesses and individuals have the most comprehensive understanding.

As Eliezer Yudowsky once said, “by far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it” [Eliezer Yudowsky, ‘Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk’, Global Catastrophic, 2008]. From a broader perspective, this goes hand in hand in tackling one of the key issues that presents itself with any rapid deployment of a technology: the digital divide. One of the benefits of AI for many is, especially with GenAI, that it is highly accessible. With its natural language processing capabilities, humans can interact with it, at a basic level, almost instantaneously. Concerns over connectivity, geographical disparities and affordability, however, will remain.

With its capabilities, algorithms and presence expanding exponentially, we must design, introduce and facilitate educational programmes that can keep up, or at least try to, with the latest developments of AI. These initiatives on AI must include its strengths, weaknesses, sample use cases and an ethical perspective. Looking to the younger generation who are growing up with ChatGPT as their educational buddy, we must equip them with the critical thinking skills and ethical knowledge required to make informed decisions that will promote the common good above all else.

Final words

Just like any successful relationship, our partnership with AI needs to be based on honesty, trust and open communication. Whether it is driving incentives with business leaders, applying ethical guidelines or learning from use cases, we can use our creativity and understanding of AI’s potential to advance the common good.

It is only through collaboration, conversation and coalitions that we can rally together so that all are for AI and AI is for all.

Click here for a list of sources used in this article.

Useful links:

• Link up with Thérèse Rottner on LinkedIn
• Read a related article: AI for Common Good: The tug-of-war for control and conscience
• Download this and other articles in the special issue Global Voice magazine #32
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• Apply for an IE MBA.

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