Boards need to stay on top of artificial intelligence and cyber
risk, whilst simultaneously making more ethical and philosophical
decisions
Imagine you are on the board of a motor manufacturing company.
Technology nowadays permits a level of automation in cars that will
make our roads safer and lead to fewer deaths. But it will also
occasionally fail, leading to spectacular accidents which the
public will blame on the premature introduction of technology.
Would you approve a project to introduce the latest automatic
features into your range? If you do not, more people will die on
the roads, but, if you do, your company’s reputation would be
trashed at the first major failure.
This is the sort of decision that companies are increasingly
having to make about the use of advanced technology in their
business. The choice is a difficult one, but it is only
tangentially about technology. It belongs primarily in the familiar
category of risk appetite and risk oversight.
