"As AI continues to reshape industries, how can organisations ensure responsible and ethical AI management?"

The world has had one of its biggest leaps in history by starting to utilise the Artificial intelligence. Increasing usage of AI in all industries opens doors to many possibilities and opportunities. Organisations adopted using AI, such as ChatGPT, for writing emails, scheduling their calendars, and other administrative tasks on a very broad scale.

These AI operations come with their own risks and responsibilities to the users, organisations, and regulators. That why the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has developed its new standard for Artificial Management Systems: ISO 42001.

WHAT IS AIMS (ISO 42001)?

ISO 42001 is the first certifiable international standard for Artificial Intelligence Management Systems (AIMS). It provides a structured framework for organisations to responsibly develop, deploy, and manage AI technologies. AIMS helps organisations develop, deploy, and manage AI responsibly, ensuring compliance with ethical and regulatory guidelines.

Why It Matters?

In a world of data and information, governance of AI usage seems like an absolute necessity. Businesses and employees are freely using ChatGPT to draft an email that includes personal information and sometimes reveals secure and private matters to the space no one knows who is responsible for.

Apart from security concerns, bias and fairness, lack of transparency, job displacement, and ethical dilemmas are other concerns regarding the usage of Artificial intelligence.

It is a constantly growing trend to use AI for automatic decision-making, which also comes with its own risks. As machine learning systems, AI is not protected from making unbiased decisions, and there is always a risk of changing its behaviour during use. This leads to inconsistent results and more mistakes. So, it is the organisation's responsibility to ensure decisions are correct, ethical, and accurate.

Key Components of ISO 42001

Here is the breakdown of the essential elements of ISO 42001:

AI Risk Assessment: Identifying and mitigating risks throughout the AI lifecycle.

To identify all relevant risks of using AI, ISO IEC 23894 has been developed as “Guidance on AI Risk Management.”

AI Impact Assessment: Evaluating AI’s consequences on individuals and society.

This is also a mandatory part of this ISO standard. To develop this assessment, there is another guideline to assist the organisation. ISO IEC 42005 provides guidance for organisations performing AI system impact assessments for individuals and societies that can be affected by an AI system.

Continuous Improvement: Ensuring AI systems evolve responsibly

And like any other ISO standard, it is necessary to ensure AI management system is evolving to be better over time.

ISO 42001 is in alignment with ISO 27001 (Information Security Management System) and ISO 27701 (Privacy Management System). They are complementing each other in providing safe, secure, and transparent results to customers and other stakeholders. All three require a “Statement of Applicability” which can be combined as one document.

If your organisation uses AI for its daily operations, it is highly recommended to start implementing principles of ISO 42001 into your management systems. If you’re certified for any ISO standard, such as ISO 9001, this can be a good addition to your current system.