Hello Pasquale, thank you for being with us today. Now, just to break the ice, could you please give me three words or adjectives to describe your agency?
“Yes, sure, thanks for hosting me here. I choose three words: the first is positive, second is innovative, the third is caring.”
I like the word “caring.” Why did you choose it?
“I chose caring, but then I thought, what about “scaring,” which is more interesting, I guess, because we do communication, we work in the creative space, and I guess we are scared by many things nowadays: by AI, by many things that we read, that we see in videos. So I think we don’t have to be scared, but “scaring” is a sort of way to be more positive and innovative in terms of what we expect from the future and what we want for the future we are building every day.”
Thank you, that’s going to be hard to forget, actually, at least at the end. Ernst & Young, the consultancy company, states that almost 65% of CEOs believe that more work is needed to address issues in an AI-based future. In your opinion, why is it so?
“I think that we know that AI has an impact on our society, and many experts say that there’s a small chance, but not too small, like a 10% chance, that the AI is a threat for the existence of humanity. And I think that even companies and CEOs, they have the responsibility to address these issues. I also think that companies have a responsibility to use AI in a manner that can be both sustainable and positive for the humanity, for employees, for society as a whole. And I think it’s a good responsibility to have, but still there’s a long way to go. We need to understand many things and also we should have an innovative approach, and maybe we can be scared again, but we don’t have to be scared actually.”
Thank you so much. That’s definitely some fresh air in a fear-dominated debate. Now, we often hear about the harmful consequences and concerns associated with AI, but there’s also an AI that may be used for good. Even the United Nations acknowledged during an event named “AI for Good” that this is the case. Now, you were at the event. Could you tell us more about the sentiment around this topic?
“Yes, I had the chance to participate to the event last year in Geneva, and it was really surprising. The main topic of the event was that AI as a force for good can be a powerful accelerator to reach the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), and also maybe it’s the only chance that we have as humanity to actually reach SDGs by 2030. It was both revealing and surprising because when you think about AI, you don’t think about what can AI do for good, but you think of robots, you think of the risks associated with AI. And the whole conference, three days conference, it was about how companies, startups, and organizations are using AI to accelerate our path towards sustainability and the SDGs.
For instance, we have companies using AI in the medical space, we have companies using AIs to address problems about food, about even life-threatening problems. And it’s really some different point of view in terms of how we look at AI. Every day we have news and posts on social media telling us that AI is a risk and an opportunity. I think this is the only conference worldwide focusing on the AI as an opportunity, also as a hope that we have as humanity to reach our goals, our common goals.
Just to make an example, we look at Generative AI as a mean to create more content, to create more advertising, to create more communication content, but it’s not only that. Generative AI can be also a mean to understand more content, to understand more data, more numbers that we really cannot figure out as humans because we have too many data, too much content every day. So we can really use AI to understand this content and together with AI—so human plus AI—can do something different and also we can leverage this data, this powerful data to reach sustainability goals and not only commercial goals. Something that really, I found to be honest wonderful: a manager from Microsoft told the audience, “Do you really want to be the generation that use the most powerful tool that we have, the most powerful technological tool that we have to just deliver more advertising?” And really, I feel that I don’t want to be that kind of professional. We don’t need more advertising, but we need more AI, but for good and not for bad.”
Fantastic. Now, just as AI has the potential to be used for positive purpose, businesses too can be powerful forces for good. Nowadays, there’s a lot of discourse about the environmental impact and how organizations may offset it through the use of Artificial Intelligence. In the context of ESG, however, it is important to also focus on the two other crucial components: Social and Governance, represented by the S and the G in the acronym. Now, let’s start with the latter. What does AI have to do with Governance?
“I think when we talk about AI, we are really underestimating the importance of governance within organizations and companies. It’s a safe bet that AI is here to stay, and companies need to prepare to really use AI and also, when I’m thinking of how to prepare, I’m thinking of policies and rules, and internal rules on how we use AI, how companies want to use AI, and also what they want to do with AI and what they don’t want to do with AI. It’s not something that only big companies need to address in terms of policies, what tools to use, what tools not to use, but every company, also every individual, needs to have an idea on how to use AI for good and not for bad.
Because when even in companies there’s this new trend called “Bring Your Own AI”. It means that in companies, even if some tools are blocked at a company level, every one of us has the opportunity to bring AI from home. I have ChatGPT installed on my phone and I can really access every AI tool on the market in a very easily manner. That can be an opportunity and it can also be a problem. We know that for instance for skilled professionals, AI tools can increase the productivity by 40%—it’s an MIT data, so it’s pretty solid. And also we know that around 15% of all jobs can be automated and they will be. So companies really need to take a stand. They need to take a position on whether they’re using AI and how they’re using AI and what are the opportunities they’re trying to grasp and also what kind of maybe actions they don’t want to take and what kind of things they want to avoid when they’re using AI. It’s a great responsibility, but I think there’s no choice. You cannot just choose not to behave: whether you choose to have a policy on AI or not having a policy, actually you’re doing something and you’re behaving and you’re moving in a space that is really impacted by AI.”
Great. And what about the Social aspect where companies are facing growing accountability? Is AI an effective tool for addressing potential challenges in this field?
“About the Social sphere, companies need to address different issues. The reason why it’s so is because these Large Language Models, these AI models, are working in a different way in terms of both software and the behavior in terms of user experience. When we use an AI model, we can control the input and we hope that the output is somehow linked to the input. And it’s pretty unusual in terms of software. When you use any kind of software we work with, we use for our job, like a document or maybe an Excel file, we can control both the input and the output. But when we use the AI models, that’s not the case. It’s like a black box and we create the input and we hope that the output is consistent, is valid, is safe.
But these softwares, they have a lot of hallucinations, they have biases, and it’s quite hard to control this behavior. And also, we know that the only companies that can control this behavior and they know what’s happening under the hood are the big tech companies creating these large language models. And maybe that’s the solution, but meanwhile what companies can do is try to take care of every step while using the large language models and also trying different models, different softwares and see how they behave. There’s not a standard or maybe a common behavior for these softwares, so you change the app, you change the large language model and new behaviors arise every day. That’s really we need to explore and don’t be scared by this behavior because that’s the state of the art of this industry, but also remember that there are some principles, some values linked to the companies, to the companies’ culture that we really need to take care of. And maybe that’s part maybe of the solution when we use these models, these softwares, when we enter the social sphere.”
Last but not least, Pasquale, do you have any practical recommendations for our audience who may be willing to use AI to reach social goals?
“Yes, I think first start learning. Before using a tool, it is better to know how it works and if it has any kind of limit. AI has lots of limits, as I said before. Then maybe try to approach AI more as a cyborg and not as a centaur. The key is to work with AI, not against or next to AI. Human plus AI, I think, is the way to go. So we need to try to cooperate with this technology, and it’s the first time in human history that human intelligence needs to work along with another type of intelligence, and that’s the artificial intelligence.”
