Quick Overview

  • A report released by Deloitte on Monday shows that technology professionals rank data privacy as the most prominent ethical concern when enterprises deploy generative AI. The report surveyed 1,848 business and technology professionals.
  • The report notes that nearly three-quarters of respondents listed data privacy as one of the top three ethical concerns for the technology's application.
  • This year, two-fifths of respondents ranked data privacy as their top concern, nearly double the one-quarter proportion in Deloitte's 2023 survey.

Deep Insights

Technology leaders are examining their organizations' infrastructure and talent needs to guide the adoption of generative AI. Ethical issues should also be on the checklist.

"Generative AI breaks down 'professional barriers': more people can derive greater value from data without deep technical knowledge. This is an advantage, but the potential for data breaches may also increase," said Sachin Kulkarni, managing director of Deloitte Risk & Brand Protection, in the report.

Professionals also expressed concerns about generative AI's impact on transparency, data provenance, intellectual property attribution, and hallucination issues. Although job displacement is often cited as a significant concern, only 16% of respondents listed it as a problem.

Among emerging technology categories, business and IT professionals believe that cognitive technologies—including large language models, machine learning, neural networks, and generative AI—pose the most severe ethical risks.

This category surpasses technology areas such as digital reality, autonomous vehicles, and robotics. However, respondents also listed cognitive technologies as the most likely to advance social well-being.

Due to their reliance on data, most executives worry that generative AI tools will expand the attack surface, thereby increasing cybersecurity risks. A survey released by Flexential earlier this month corroborates this view.