technology – Miranda's Marketing Mind

In my blog YouTube caught collecting children’s data we talked about the ethics of collecting children’s data. However, the question of ethical data usage is something which has become increasingly concerning over recent years. The Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal, in particular, recently brought the practice of personal data usage to the average consumer’s attention.

For marketers the use of data can increase the quality of sales leads, prospecting accuracy, territory planning, win rates, and decision maker engagement strategies. The evolution of data technologies and analytics has created new marketing opportunities but also opened up a myriad of ethical challenges, such as the targeting or exclusion of minorities through dark ads. Consumers still struggle to understand the nature and scope of the data collected about them, and only 9% believe they have “a lot of control” over the data that is collected about them, despite 74% saying that it is very important to be in control of who can get their information.

The ability to collect more granular data grows, typically faster than rules and guidelines can be written to keep pace. Thus, although a marketer’s use of data might be guided if their company or industry has clear data usage guidelines, it ultimately has a large reliance on their own personal ethics. The integration of ethical data practises, that address questions regarding the technology’s influence on society, will be what the future of digital marketing relies upon.

What do you think about the ethics about data usage in marketing? Should there be more rules in place to protect and inform consumers about data collection?

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Artificial intelligence (AI) has come far in recent years, particularly in customer support systems, like chatbots and virtual assistants, with 40% of large companies (over 500 employees) planning to implement one or more virtual assistants or AI based chatbots. This is because of their many benefits, such as being an employee that never needs a day off or a break. They are not perfect, and oftentimes customers will need to talk to a human, but they can improve overall efficiency.

However, there is a dark and concerning side to how chatbots operate. As AI chatbots learn by collecting and analysing data, they can collect, and therefore learn, the wrong things. For example, the highly publicised take down of the Microsoft chatbot Tay, which learnt racist language and promoted Neo-Nazi views on Twitter, and Amazon’s AI recruiter that would not hire women.

Marketers should consider the privacy issues as customers often don’t know what information they give away, and customer decisions can be unethically influenced by an AI building a relationship, and ultimately learning how to persuade them more effectively over time.

As AI is based on probability and statistics, if it learns to use factors such as race, religion and sexual orientation, it can unfairly disenfranchise a segment of the population, even if this is not expressly in the algorithm. For example, in America if you have zip code and income in your algorithm, your AI may begin making recommendations based on race.

As chatbots become more prevalent, digital marketers need to be aware of the ethics and concerns around them, and ensure that these technologies are developed with ethical considerations in mind, in order to reap the benefits on offer. It may be important for companies to be more transparent with what they collect from consumers, as well as to make sure these are developed with the mind-set to improve customer experience. Or even just providing the option for customers to opt out of data collection should they wish to do so.

What do you think? Do you think chatbots running today have these ethical considerations in mind? How can we ensure consumers remain protected? What do you think are the key things to look out for when developing a chatbot? What do you think this means for the use of AI chatbots in future digital marketing?

Feature image courtesy of GreatLearningBlog