Your Lex column (June 5) calls for designers of generative artificial intelligence chatbots and other “wellness” apps to avoid fake health claims and provide evidence of their effectiveness before deployment. I was pleased to see that not only was there a , but investors were proposing as well. “Reasonable duty of care”.
The apparent lack of even basic due diligence on the negative social impacts of AI in general, and generative AI in particular, by venture capitalists, institutional investors, and individual shareholders is what we face in AI. Curiously, it remains unscrutinized, even though it is at the heart of the problem.
Or am I too lenient to judge these investors as simply incompetent, even though their actions are much more heinous? Perhaps they exercised due caution and recognized the potential for harm to individuals and society, but decided that making money was too tempting, so they funded it anyway and made the problem visible. and will only sell shares when shares become apparent. Will prices fall? In any case, the time has come for investors to be held more accountable for the negative impacts of their investments, from regulators, policy makers and society. Nice to see the FT taking the lead in this regard.
Hillary Sutcliffe
Society Inside Director
London SE21, UK
