Enforcing Ethical Practices Through Innovative Technologies
At Buddywise, our goal is improving workplace safety through behavior changing technology and design. Because our product is artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision, we believe that it is our responsibility to stay up-to-date with marketplace developments to ensure our product remains safe and ethical for workers. AI is still mostly unregulated in Europe and throughout the world (the European Parliament just passed a first draft of the AI Act, but a final version isn’t expected to be passed until the end of the year). The lack of regulation and oversight has opened the door to many potentially high-risk applications of AI.
Ethical AI in Workplace Safety
One of the core principles of our product design is data integrity and ensuring our commitment to using AI for good. We do this by upholding the highest principles of AI ethics in order to make workplaces safer. What does this mean exactly? We highlight these practices in this article as well as the potential consequences of risky AI applications. We will illustrate how ethical practices are ingrained in every step of the Buddywise product development process, from model training to deployment, to ensure our product benefits workers, and increases workplace safety without making concessions in data privacy and ethics.
With recent advancements in AI, there are many applications that pose an unacceptable risk to society due to their potential to cause harm. For example, public authorities using AI-based social scoring or creditworthiness can harm vulnerable groups or populations. Any application utilizing personally identifiable biometric data, such as face or body shape, has the potential to encroach on personal privacy. That’s why our products prioritize protecting worker privacy and use bounding boxes to obfuscate the human form. Additionally, we do not use biometric data, nor do we apply facial recognition — ever. These practices ensure that our models do not store personal data when detecting risks in the workplace.
Protecting Worker Privacy & Ensuring Data Integrity
We use AI and computer vision to proactively monitor workplace safety, reduce risks and prevent accidents. Buddywise works with any existing camera to detect observations in real-time. The computer vision models do not care about who, but rather what practices workers are implementing and where they take place within the workspace. Our customers can personalize notifications to receive alerts for the observations that are urgent for them through email, SMS, or IoT (Internet of Things) devices. These notifications can play a vital role in alerting health and safety personnel of a hazard and supporting an immediate, swift resolution.
While the product can be used for real-time notifications, it can also track changes to workplace safety over time like the rollout of a new workplace safety practice. Informed practices are key for setting goals, and our system tracks metrics to help users achieve them. The Web App plays a crucial role in this process by providing customized recommendations on how to improve safety based on the identified risks. These recommendations can help guide organizations in implementing targeted safety measures and best practices to take safety practices to the next level and actually change behavior.
The Web App can help facilitate goal setting, enabling users to define specific safety objectives and track their progress over time. By leveraging the goal tracking feature, organizations can monitor their safety improvements, identify areas that require further attention, and take proactive measures to enhance workplace safety continuously. This comprehensive approach, combining real-time notifications, safety recommendations, and goal setting capabilities, empowers organizations to actively address safety concerns and prioritize ongoing safety improvement.
Harnessing AI for Ongoing Safety Improvements
We see computer vision and its applications as a tool to implement change in the workplace. We strongly believe that tools are not the solution though — people are! That’s why at Buddywise we believe AI and its applications are just the first step to creating a safer work environment. As a result, our product goes beyond real-time observations. Data collection is key for pinpointing weak areas in existing practices to promote constant improvements in safety. At Buddywise, we believe that this information should be accessible, accurate and up-to-date for our users. Then we can work proactively to prevent issues or safety risks before they arise in the workplace.
Ethical data collection and utilization via AI models is the unsung hero in workplace safety because it gives workers agency over how their data is stored and used. Our products not only collect observations but track changes over time, encouraging positive trends and safer worksites. Improving workplace safety begins with understanding the issue, we use computer vision to stay on the frontline of innovation while maintaining ethical practices and putting workers first.
Together, let’s prioritize workers’ safety and embrace the transformative power of AI. Discover how Buddywise can help your organization enhance workplace safety at www.buddywise.co!
