Treat ethical AI as a market differentiator, not a compliance box-check

The move makes clear that many AI executives see rolling back chatbot safety features as a potential boon for their businesses. Elon Musk’s xAI, for instance, has already launched provocative or unfiltered chat features, which it appears to be using as a product differentiator.² Users who want services unrestrained by conventional norms might flock to these platforms in the short term.

In the long term, however, corporate irresponsibility could be a major drag. Companies that produce unsafe products open themselves to vast liabilities and appeal less to the talent and customers they depend on most. Worse, they may lose consumers in the long run, as people turn against technologies that do not fit their values or that make them feel bad in other ways.

News reports regularly detail accounts of people whose mental and physical well-being are degraded by their use of AI chatbots. One corporate recruiter in Toronto, for instance, became convinced that he had superpowers after a long conversation that began when he asked ChatGPT to help him with his son’s math homework.³ To reduce risk to AI companies and increase appeal to users, avoiding pitfalls like these should be a priority for everyone in the sector.