Businesses in Cumbria are being urged to prepare for the 'ethical and responsible' use of artificial intelligence (AI).

The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD), a professional body for HR and people development, launched a guide to support employers and HR to understand the impact and usage of new AI tech like ChatGPT, wrought with security and ethical risks despite the commercial usefulness.

Among the looming and reportedly plausible existential threat of AI, businesses may suffer if AI is used incorrectly, such as through loss of jobs, creativity, and ability of AI when used for demanding human tasks.

Some immediate risks posed by AI also include, according to the Financial Times, enabling the spread of misinformation; breaching copyright and; rogue chatbots manipulating humans.

Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of AI company DeepMind, told the FT that AI would create ‘a serious number of losers’ as jobs are lost to robots.

Some roles that are feared to be most immediately affected are layers, copywriters, coders, and creative writers.

Peter Cheese, CIPD’s chief executive, said: “AI is now evolving rapidly, and much is being speculated about its potential and uptake across sectors, organisations, and jobs.

“Now is the time for organisations to learn, experiment and innovate, to understand both the potential benefits to people, jobs, and business outcomes, but also to understand the risks.”

Commenting locally, Cumbria Chamber of Commerce’s managing director, Suzanne Cladwell, said: “We’ve been looking at AI and wider digital skills needs as part of the Local Skills Improvement Plan activity.

“This is certainly an area that needs more work.

“Not least because many businesses need to have a clearer understanding of the opportunities and issues to inform their thinking on how they can best use AI moving forward and what this then means in terms of skills and staffing, and how they do business more widely.

“There are a host of opportunities available and emerging across the range of sectors, but also challenges.

“With the 2023 report about to be published, this is one of the areas we’ll be looking at in more depth in this next phase.”