As emotional bonds with Artificial Intelligence (AI) raise ethical concerns worldwide, customer engagement consultancy Khumbula Tech has taken the lead locally by committing itself to an ethics-centred approach in its AI consulting.
While the most recent Global Index on Responsible AI ranked South Africa as the highest-performing country in Africa*, reflecting the country’s strong legal foundation underpinning its approach to AI, KPMG** found last year that a substantial 77 percent of SA CEOs were concerned about ‘ethical issues’ in AI adoption locally.
“From blue chips to start-ups, local business leaders always want to know how they can roll out AI within their organisations, followed closely by how they can stay on the right side of good business ethics,” says Khumbula Tech CEO, Ongopotse Motlhanke.
In response to corporate South Africa’s ethical concerns around AI that include data privacy, algorithmic bias and potential job displacement, Khumbula Tech’s AI consulting and rollouts now rest on a foundation that first and foremost prioritises the wellbeing of end users.
Next, Khumbula Tech says three ethical pillars will inform any local AI rollout:
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Disclosing AI use will make it obvious to all users when they are interacting with an AI system and not a person.
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Human oversight will be maintained for critical user decisions to ensure the AI system’s outputs remain aligned with user needs and ethical standards.
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Regular auditing will detect and correct any biases in AI responses or outputs, ensuring the equal treatment of all users and elimination of stereotypes.
Finally, an overarching commitment to user and data privacy will ensure clear customer consent is present before leveraging customer data for AI applications.
Khumbula Tech is further calling for in-country dialogue to determine the issues and likely solutions specifically around inevitable human attachments to AI agents and other generative AI-based chatbots.
“An industry-wide Code of Conduct seems to be one of the most appropriate solutions to emotional bonds forming between AI applications and people,” says Motlhanke.
“It’s becoming clear that using AI within the context of customer engagement is not as straightforward as just developing amazing workflows that answer FAQs.
“Today, any technology partner must place ethics at the centre of AI advice and rollouts or risk exposing clients to significant fallout down the line,” added Motlhanke.
Khumbula Tech is a team of forward-thinkers, tech enthusiasts, and creative minds dedicated to providing similarly forward-thinking local businesses with the world’s most advanced customer engagement solutions. This passion for what’s next has naturally led the firm to AI.
“It’s now abundantly obvious that implementing AI solutions within organisations doesn’t just enable human agents to focus on more complex tasks, it’s already resulting in certain ethical concerns that now require an appropriate human response,” concludes Motlhanke.
Khumbula Tech is a level 2 B-BBEE entity, led by Ongopotse Motlhanke as CEO and Daniella Van Der Merwe as Chairperson. The firm’s delivery model is to integrate client solutions with the globe’s leading platforms, all with customer engagement and communication requirements top of mind.
