AI Ethics Charter
7 Principles for Ethical AI in Business Relationships
The Selling Better AI Ethics Charter: 7 principles for using artificial intelligence in business relationships ethically, maintaining trust, transparency, and human connection.
In an era of Artificial Intelligence, the need for ethical, human-centred engagement has never been greater. This charter provides a framework for using AI safely and ethically in all professional interactions – protecting your reputation, relationships, and career while harnessing technology’s power to enhance your effectiveness.
Think of these principles as your professional armour – they keep you safe while you experiment with powerful new tools.
Principle 1: Human Judgement and Sovereignty
The Principle: The final judgement, ethical responsibility, and emotional connection must always reside with a human being.
The Guard Against: Displacement of Responsibility (“The AI made me do it”)
Why This Protects Your Business: Legal liability: “The AI did it” is not a defence in court. Customer trust: People need to know a human cares about their outcome. Quality control: AI hallucinates, makes mistakes, misses context. Humans catch this. Competitive advantage: Human judgement is your moat. AI is commodity.
How to Implement: AI drafts, human reviews and personalises every important communication. AI flags risks, human makes the call on proceeding. AI analyses data, human interprets meaning and decides action. Make it clear to customers when they’re interacting with AI versus human.
Principle 2: Informed Authenticity
The Principle: We are honest about our use of AI, avoiding deception and building relationships on genuine human contribution.
The Guard Against: Euphemistic Labelling and Attribution of Blame
Why This Protects Your Business: Trust preservation: Buyers are sophisticated and will discover AI use eventually. Legal compliance: Regulations are emerging requiring AI disclosure. Differentiation: Transparency about ethical AI use becomes competitive advantage. Employee retention: People want to work for honest companies.
How to Implement: Disclose AI assistance in appropriate contexts. Never pretend AI-generated content is entirely human-created. Be transparent about data sources and analytical methods. Train staff on when and how to disclose AI use.
Principle 3: Bias Mitigation and Fairness
The Principle: We actively work to identify and eliminate biases in AI systems that can lead to discriminatory or unfair outcomes.
The Guard Against: Dehumanisation and Advantageous Comparison
Why This Protects Your Business: Legal compliance: Anti-discrimination laws apply to AI decisions. Market access: Biased AI excludes potential customers and talent. Reputation protection: AI bias scandals destroy brand equity permanently. Ethical obligation: Fairness is the foundation of sustainable business.
How to Implement: Audit AI tools for bias regularly. Diversify training data and test with diverse user groups. Human oversight for high-stakes decisions. Establish clear appeal processes when AI makes adverse decisions.
Principle 4: Data Integrity and Privacy
The Principle: We respect all stakeholder data as a sacred trust. AI will be used to enhance data accuracy and security, not to exploit it.
The Guard Against: Disregard or Distortion of Consequences
Why This Protects Your Business: Legal compliance: Privacy regulations carry severe penalties. Customer trust: Data breaches destroy relationships permanently. Competitive advantage: Privacy-conscious clients and consumers pay premium for protection. Risk mitigation: Data misuse creates liability that can bankrupt companies.
How to Implement: Minimise data collection. Transparent privacy policies in plain language. Secure storage with encryption and access controls. Never sell or share customer data without explicit consent. Use AI models that prioritise privacy.
Principle 5: Value Creation, Not Extraction
The Principle: AI must be used to create disproportionate value for all parties in a relationship, not just to extract value for ourselves.
The Guard Against: Moral Justification and Diffusion of Responsibility
Why This Protects Your Business: Customer lifetime value: Value creation builds loyalty. Extraction creates churn. Referral generation: Delighted customers become advocates. Pricing power: Value creators command premiums. Extractors compete on price. Sustainable growth: Extraction exhausts markets. Creation expands them.
How to Implement: Use AI to identify customer needs they haven’t articulated yet. Proactively solve problems before customers ask. Share insights and research. Measure success by customer outcomes, not just revenue. Design AI systems that optimise for mutual benefit.
Principle 6: Connection and Empathy
The Principle: We will use AI to scale our ability to understand and empathise, not to scale generic, impersonal communication.
The Guard Against: Dehumanisation and Disregard of Consequences
Why This Protects Your Business: Differentiation: In a world of AI spam, genuine empathy is rare and valuable. Relationship depth: Empathy creates emotional loyalty algorithms can’t replicate. Problem-solving quality: Understanding context produces better solutions. Employee satisfaction: People want to do meaningful work, not manage robots.
How to Implement: Use AI to understand customer context, not to blast generic messages at scale. Personalise based on needs and goals, not just demographic data. Train AI on positive and ethical interaction examples, not manipulative tactics. Measure connection quality, not just response rates. Empower humans to override AI when empathy requires it.
Principle 7: Continuous Ethical Vigilance
The Principle: The ethical use of AI is a continuous practice of learning, questioning, and adapting.
The Guard Against: All mechanisms of moral disengagement, by fostering a culture of conscious accountability
Why This Protects Your Business: Risk management: Regular audits catch problems before they become crises. Innovation advantage: Ethical constraint drives creative solutions. Team empowerment: Vigilance culture encourages employees to speak up. Regulatory preparedness: Proactive ethics positions you ahead of regulations.
How to Implement: Quarterly AI ethics audits. Open channel for employees to report ethical concerns without retaliation. Regular training on emerging AI ethics issues. Diverse ethics advisory board reviewing AI deployments. Document decision-making processes for accountability. Share learnings publicly to advance industry standards.
Take the Pledge:
By endorsing the SellingBetter AI Ethics Charter, you commit to using artificial intelligence as a tool to enhance human connection, create mutual value, and build sustainable business relationships based on trust and transparency.
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