The Environment Agency has introduced a new citizen science initiative at Par Beach in Cornwall and Combe Martin in Devon, encouraging beachgoers to engage with AI to monitor water quality and beach conditions.&nbsp;
This 12-week trial, starting in October, aims to involve the public in gathering valuable data while keeping them informed about the state of their local environment.
At both beaches, visitors will find QR code signage prompting them to start a conversation with the Hello Lamp Post AI platform. This system will share the latest information from the Environment Agency&rsquo;s water quality monitoring efforts, but the interaction is designed to be more than just a one-way update. The agency hopes that beachgoers will contribute their own observations by answering questions about the number of people or dogs on the beach, the clarity of the water, or any signs of pollution.
The project has gained strong local support. Barbara Martin of Combe Martin Water Watch praised the agency&rsquo;s continued focus on water quality, stating, "We are proud of the 'Good' water quality rating for Combe Martin, and this AI scheme will empower both residents and visitors to report concerns directly and instantly." Similarly, Jenny Tagney from Friends of Par Beach, which participates in water quality monitoring projects, expressed excitement about the initiative. "We are really pleased to support the Environment Agency in its efforts to understand the key factors affecting Par Beach's water quality."
This AI-driven citizen science trial is expected to complement the Environment Agency&rsquo;s seasonal sampling efforts, which concluded on September 30. By maintaining an ongoing flow of data beyond the regular monitoring season, the project will help create a fuller picture of the environmental conditions at both beaches, involving the community directly in safeguarding their coastal areas.
This initiative signifies the integration of AI into environmental monitoring - one of many industries that will increasingly rely on AI expertise. To explore a range of diverse sectors where your skills can make an impact, <a href="https://www.generativegroup.ai/contact-us/">contact us today.</a>

The Environment Agency has introduced a new citizen science initiative at Par Beach in Cornwall and Combe Martin in Devon, encouraging beachgoers to engage with AI to monitor water quality and beach conditions. 

AI Signs Set to Improve Beach Conditions in the South West of England

Forbes recently reported <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/ai-statistics/#:~:text=72%25%20of%20businesses%20have%20adopted,at%20least%20one%20business%20function." target="_blank" rel="noopener">72% of businesses have adopted AI</a> for one or more business functions, despite the uptick in AI usage in workplaces, the majority of companies leveraging AI in their business do not have ethical guidelines, or frameworks for AI use in the workplace.&nbsp;
Without firm guidelines and frameworks for how AI is used in the workplace, companies run the risk of inadvertently creating biased outcomes, or violating employee privacy. The lack of clear structures for AI use in the workplace can create a culture of uncertainty and unregulated decision making that stifles innovation, damages employee trust, and may have negative consequences for a firm&rsquo;s reputation.
When leveraging AI, your business needs a complete approach to ethical AI implementation, which has frameworks for everything from bias mitigation to AI governance. Read on to find practical steps and strategies to make your AI systems work with ethical principles while creating business value.
<h2 dir="ltr">Understanding Ethical AI in the Workplace</h2>
Creating internal guidelines for how AI is used by your teams will present various unique challenges that your organisation must handle with care, as your leaders will need to create clear and comprehensive frameworks for how your teams use AI for each function. AI usage policies should&nbsp; be strict enough to ensure that AI systems are always used responsibly, while also ensuring that your guidelines aren&rsquo;t so strict that they hinder AI adoption or discourage employees from using AI systems..
Here are the main ethical concerns you should think about, with how your company uses AI.:
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Data Privacy and Security: AI models need huge amounts of personal data, which raises questions about data collection, processing, and storage, especially when used on customer or employee datasets..
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Bias Prevention: Biased training data and teams can make AI systems carry forward existing biases that might lead to unfair outcomes for certain groups of people..
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Transparency: AI tools often work like "black boxes&rdquo;, where users can&rsquo;t see the workings between input and output, which can cause transparency issues with how outputs and decisions are made.
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Accountability: Often there is minimal accountability in businesses for the decisions made by AI, making it tough to figure out who in an organisation is&nbsp; responsible for any negative outcomes.
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A reliable governance structure helps deal with these challenges. Right now, most countries do not have comprehensive regulations for how AI should be used, leaving businesses to self regulate their AI usage. While some countries and states do have some basic guidelines and regulations in place, these are often not comprehensive enough to ensure positive outcomes from AI usage across the board.
Creating ethical AI systems needs skilled people who grasp both technical details and ethical implications, which is where companies like Generative can help, as we can help your firm recruit the AI ethics specialists needed to set up governance frameworks and ethical AI usage guidelines for your firm.
<h2 dir="ltr">Developing an Ethical AI Framework</h2>
If your company uses AI systems as part of it&rsquo;s workflows, it is essential to have ethical AI guidelines and frameworks in place, your AI framework will need clear guidelines and policies that your team can follow when working with AI as part of their day to day duties,&nbsp; providing a clear structure to be followed while staying flexible enough to adapt as technologies evolve and new use cases emerge.
Before creating your internal frameworks and policies, your first step should be to undertake a complete risk assessment to review the potential ethical, legal, and social effects of your AI implementation. These components form the foundation of your framework:
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Define clear AI usage boundaries and permissible applications.
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Establish transparent decision-making processes.
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Implement accountability measures for AI system outputs.
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Create regular auditing schedules and performance metrics for AI systems.
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Develop feedback mechanisms to improve AI systems &amp; usage.
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Stakeholder involvement plays a vital role in creating comprehensive AI policies, stakeholders from HR, IT, legal, and leadership teams should work together to develop policies that address their individual concerns, and covers their individual use cases.&nbsp;
The success of your frameworks will depend on regular reviews, audits, and updates; as the technology advances and your company adopts AI for new use cases; your audit schedule should reflect each system's complexity and usage frequency, to ensure that your policies keep pace with the rapid development of AI technology.
<h2 dir="ltr">Mitigating Bias and Promoting Fairness</h2>
AI systems made and used without strong ethical guidelines, can have the unintended consequence of showing discrimination based on gender, race, age, and other protected characteristics, which can inadvertently cause&nbsp; systemic bias within or lead to negative outcomes for certain groups of people.
Organisations must implement effective bias mitigation strategies:
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Ensure diverse and representative training data across demographics
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Test and audit AI systems regularly for fairness metrics
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Create clear procedures to address identified biases
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Set up human oversight mechanisms for quality control
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Data diversity plays a vital role in reducing bias, as studies show that many AI solutions lack peer-reviewed evidence of performance. The focus should be on both data quantity and quality, teams building AI solutions need to ask not just "How much data?" but "What data?" to ensure real-life representation.
Curating teams with professionals from different backgrounds, will help your company to better identify potential biases that might otherwise go unnoticed, and bring about the balance required for ethical AI usage.
<h2 dir="ltr">Empowering Employees in an AI-Driven Workplace</h2>
Data from LinkedIn shows that <a href="https://www.greatplacetowork.com/resources/blog/100-best-training-workforce-ai">four in five U.S. employees</a> want more workplace AI training, and that only 38% of executives help their workforce become AI-literate, highlighting a need for internal upskilling and AI training programmes to help push the adoption of AI. Your business's success with AI will largely depend on giving employees the ability to ethically utilise AI as a tool, through detailed training and support. 
These benefits make an AI-powered workplace valuable:
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Up-to-the-minute data analysis for better decisions
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Customised learning paths
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Simplified processes <a href="https://engageforsuccess.org/productivity/7-ways-ai-and-automation-can-enhance-employee-engagement/">saving 3.6 hours per week</a>
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Increased team efficiency and communication
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Building AI Literacy is a vital requirement for employers who want to encourage responsible AI usage in the workplace. Employers must ensure their staff has sufficient AI competency, to responsibly and ethically utilise the AI tools and systems they have access to. A good training strategy combines theory with ground applications.&nbsp;
Personalisation makes a significant difference in how employees get involved. AI analyses individual performance data to suggest career advancement paths and customise work based on employee priorities. This approach increases efficiency and keeps morale high. Do you want to build an AI-literate workforce? <a href="https://www.generativegroup.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Generative's specialised recruiters</a> can connect you with AI experts who understand technical implementation and can help create your internal training programs.
A balanced approach to ethical AI usage in the workplace needs clear governance, bias prevention, and thorough staff training all spearheaded by company leaders at all levels. By creating these guidelines, your organisation can deal with privacy issues, keep processes transparent, and hold teams accountable when AI is being used in your company&rsquo;s day-to-day operations.
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Forbes recently reported 72% of businesses have adopted AI for one or more business functions, despite the uptick in AI usage in workplaces, the majority of companies leveraging AI in their business do not have ethical guidelines, or frameworks for AI use in the workplace. 

Ethical AI: Navigating Ethical Use of AI in the Workplace

AI adoption in workplaces has skyrocketed over the past few years, with <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/ai-statistics/#:~:text=72%25%20of%20businesses%20have%20adopted,at%20least%20one%20business%20function.">72% of businesses in 2024</a> using AI systems in their workflows, despite this growth in workplace usage, there is a large knowledge gap around AI in most businesses using AI, <a href="https://hbr.org/2024/05/research-what-companies-dont-know-about-how-workers-use-ai">a recent study</a> 53% of workers feel unprepared to work with AI, saying they need more training; and close to half (44%) of business leaders don&rsquo;t know how their teams are using AI .
Tech team leaders, both in the businesses developing AI systems, and those using AI systems face a crucial challenge, balancing the promotion of responsible AI use and keeping systems available and valuable to users.&nbsp;
This highlights an urgent need for AI usage policies, training initiatives and security guidelines in workplaces which are implementing AI as part of their day-to-day workflows; as well as the need for teams creating AI systems to ensure that their systems have built in guardrails and comprehensive training documentation to ensure end-users interact with your systems responsibly.&nbsp;
Your top priority should focus on protecting users while maximising AI technology's benefits, whether you're developing new solutions or implementing existing systems.
Would you like to reshape your approach to AI safety and user protection? Let's discover how you can make it happen.
<h2 dir="ltr">Establishing AI Safety Guidelines For Your Systems</h2>
Organisations using AI will need to create a detailed usage framework that defines principles, policies, and procedures for AI development and deployment. Having these frameworks and policies enforced will ensure that new AI systems are somewhat standardised (making it easier for workers to understand) and provide processes workers can follow when using AI systems to ensure responsible and ethical usage.
Your AI safety framework implementation should follow these steps:
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Define clear documentation guidelines
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Establish accountability mechanisms
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Set risk assessment protocols
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Implement monitoring systems
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Create feedback loops
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Continuous monitoring is a vital part of AI safety. The key performance indicators you should track include:
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Model accuracy and fairness metrics
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Unexpected changes in user behaviour
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AI model drift patterns
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System anomalies and safety issues
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AI safety principles should be heavily considered during the development of any new AI systems, early risk identification and mitigation through adversarial training and red teaming testing will help prevent issues before they arise.
A culture of transparency from both AI developers and teams using AI systems is required for greater levels of AI adoption, giving users confidence in the outputs of systems and allowing any issues to be quickly identified. Stakeholders need clear and understandable explanations about the capabilities, limitations and processes of any AI systems their teams will be using.
When developing safeguards for new AI systems, developers must address both traditional cyber security threats and new vulnerabilities specific to AI systems. Security should remain a core requirement throughout your system's lifecycle, receiving security patches and updates and new vulnerabilities emerge. This comprehensive strategy helps your AI systems work as intended while protecting sensitive data and maintaining user trust.
<h2 dir="ltr">Educating Users On Responsible AI Usage</h2>
Responsible AI implementation depends heavily on end-users being properly educated on the AI systems they&rsquo;re using, as well as broader education on the capabilities and limitations of AI at large. Many organisation&rsquo;s internal guidelines, usage policies and training initiatives have not caught up with advances in AI technology and capabilities, this lack of structure creates major risks for privacy breaches and poor implementation.
Responsible AI use requires a detailed focus on user education. Your organisation should develop clear, available guidelines that explain your AI systems' functionality and data collection methods. A solid educational framework should cover:
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Transparency on system processes
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Mitigating security risks
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Bias recognition and reporting
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Effective system utilisation
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Workplace adaptation strategies
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Your team should create user-friendly instructional documentation that can be understood by an average end-user, without simplifying the documentation so much as to reduce its accuracy or efficacy. Different training formats like webinars, tutorials, and written documentation accommodates various learning styles, making this training more accessible.&nbsp;
Note that any training or educational materials must be updated as systems and AI technologies evolve, allowing users to stay up to date with any new features, best practices, or security risks.
<h2 dir="ltr">Implementing Safeguarding &amp; Protection Measures</h2>
A strong mix of up-to-the-minute monitoring and proactive safeguards are needed to ensure that end users can use your systems responsibly and safely. Recent studies show that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/09/ai-safeguards-can-easily-be-broken-uk-safety-institute-finds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">simple prompting techniques can bypass AI safeguards immediately</a>, which can present a variety of security, ethical and in some cases even legal issues, highlighting the need for detailed and up-to-date protection measures to be put in place.
Up-to-the-Minute Monitoring Implementation Continuous monitoring systems that track data and system activities as they happen form your first line of defence, identifying any drastic changes in user behaviour or outputs, helping teams to quickly identify exploits, system errors and security risks, preventing&nbsp; bigger problems before they start and enabling swift action against potential threats.
Key monitoring points include:
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Data integrity across systems
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User access patterns and authentication
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Anomaly detection and alerts
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System performance metrics
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Security breach attempts
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End-to-end data protection through encryption and blockchain technology ensures your data remains unaltered during transit or at rest, which is essential for preventing security breaches like data leaks. Monitoring-based restrictions help developers respond effectively to original cases of misuse, and automated tools like input and output classifiers can screen for potential violations.
Note that specialists should regularly test your protection measures through "red-teaming" exercises by attempting to breach your system's safeguards, this proactive approach helps identify and patch out any vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them.
<h2 dir="ltr">Ensuring Continued Improvements</h2>
AI safety's landscape keeps changing, which makes ongoing improvements crucial to maintain reliable protection measures, very few AI applications remain static as data and problem characteristics change over time.
Implementing Active Learning AI systems should actively seek areas where human expertise can boost performance. Research shows that models explicitly designed with active learning can optimise performance through targeted human feedback. This approach lets your team:
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Monitor model degradation patterns
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Identify areas requiring expert input
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Track performance metrics
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Assess security vulnerabilities
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Review user interaction patterns
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Continuous Assessment Framework Instead of treating AI as a finished product, call it a service that grows and improves over time, continuous monitoring and targeted active learning work better than resource-intensive batch assessments, this approach creates models that stay current while engaging your workforce more effectively with the problem space.
Your improvement strategy must include regular security assessments and adaptation to emerging threats, the faster evolving AI world needs a proactive approach to research, development, and adaptation. Adopting state-of-the-art practices and staying informed about emerging challenges helps promote a culture that prioritises both security and responsible AI considerations.
Responsible AI implementation needs your active commitment to user protection and education. A tech team leader's role goes beyond developing powerful AI systems, you need to create complete safety frameworks, educational documentation, and resilient protection measures.
Clear documentation, continuous monitoring, and regular security assessments form the foundation of strong AI governance. These elements work together with user-focused educational resources and feedback systems to create an environment where AI technology can thrive safely and ethically.

AI adoption in workplaces has skyrocketed over the past few years, with 72% of businesses in 2024 using AI systems in their workflows, despite this growth in workplace usage, there is a large knowledge gap around AI in most businesses using AI, 

Educate and Protect: How to Promote Responsible AI Use Effectively

Like any emerging technology, AI brings with it a unique set of challenges. While it sparks optimism for the possibilities ahead, many also feel skeptical, particularly as concerns about its misuse continue to grow.
&nbsp;
<h2 dir="ltr">Introducing our new guide: Navigating the Ethical Concerns of Generative AI.&nbsp;</h2>
&nbsp;
In this report, we outline and explore a comprehensive list of ethical concerns around the widespread adoption of AI, including:
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Data Privacy
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Bias in AI Systems
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Transparency &amp; Explainability
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Environmental Impact
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Accountability &amp; Accuracy
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For each of these concerns, you&rsquo;ll recieve practical guidance and actionable steps to help your team bridge any knowledge gaps. Navigating the fine line between innovation and ethical responsibility can be tough, but don't let this stand in the way of achieving your AI goals!
&nbsp;
<h2 dir="ltr">Why You Need This Report</h2>
If you&rsquo;re developing AI, you must address ethics for your systems&nbsp;to be successful. Throughout this report, we&rsquo;ve highlighted&nbsp;some of the key steps organisations can take to create AI&nbsp;systems that are fair, transparent, and responsible.
Fill out the form below to download "Navigating the Ethical Concerns of Generative AI" and start building your AI Ethics &amp; Data Governance dream team today.
&nbsp;

<h4>As AI advances faster than legislation can keep up, developers face a pivotal challenge to drive innovation, while ensuring their systems are ethical.</h4>

<h1>Navigating the Ethical Concerns of Generative AI</h1>

AI's rapid advancement offers unprecedented opportunities - but also serious ethical challenges. This whitepaper equips you with actionable strategies to navigate these challenges while creating fair, impactful, and responsible AI solutions. Whether you&rsquo;re scaling a startup or innovating within an enterprise, this guide is essential for building ethical AI systems.
Ready to take action? Fill out the form below to download "Navigating the Ethical Concerns of Generative AI."

Get the report

If you’re developing AI, you must address ethics for your tech to be a success. Throughout this report, we highlight the key steps organisations can take to create AI systems that are fair, transparent, and responsible.