Sanjana Srikanth | November 21st, 2024
Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology that can replicate human intelligence through problem-solving, decision-making, and pattern recognition. AI is rapidly becoming a common tool in everyday technologies because it improves precision, accuracy, and optimization, making technology more powerful across various industries and fields.
AI’s impact reveals an important fact: everyone, from its creators to its users, is affected by its existence. Given its rapid integration into society, it raises a crucial question: how can we ensure that AI is used ethically to impact society positively? How can we leverage AI to uplift and serve disadvantaged communities?
To understand how we can account for the needs of vulnerable populations through the use of AI technology, we will focus on one of the major issues created and amplified by AI: economic opportunity inequality experienced by small businesses.
Economic inequality is the disparity in wealth and incomes across different groups of people in society. Economic opportunity inequality is the lack of access to opportunities that would allow businesses to participate equally in markets, which is exacerbated by technology. AI specifically impacts how smaller businesses achieve visibility in the markets, affecting their ability to compete for customers. Without visibility, smaller businesses may struggle to compete with larger businesses that can invest in advanced AI tools.
However, if access to affordable AI tools is improved, they can empower underrepresented communities by enhancing their market visibility. For example, AI can improve the visibility of small businesses within highly saturated markets by growing their online presence. Having interned with a shopping platform for small businesses, I discovered through market research and conversations with businesses that many small business owners desire and prefer to use AI-software tools to keep up with and more easily integrate current market trends, such as AI-enhanced personalized shopping reels and product livestreams. AI-software tools can help small businesses grow their user base, reach a larger audience, and manage product and video features, giving them a competitive edge to ensure they are seen and equally profitable.
Furthermore, in today’s data-driven markets, AI has arguably grown to become a necessity for small businesses to survive. Previous research shows that the COVID-19 pandemic greatly disrupted the direction of the market by forcing businesses to cultivate a strong online presence and reach customers beyond a physical location. The ability to support a thriving e-commerce marketplace, in addition to a physical store, would significantly uplift small businesses, helping them prosper through challenging times.
How can we ensure that small businesses receive the opportunity to reap the benefits of AI? Access to AI education is key, as it allows small businesses to understand how to implement AI tools into their business models. Such education could include not only how small businesses could implement current AI tools to target specific features of their businesses but also guidance on where to find the tools that best suit their needs. While making pre-existing software readily accessible may appear to be a straightforward solution, it is equally important to improve access to AI education to provide smaller businesses the opportunity to build, apply, and scale AI models of their own. Rather than relying on the services of external AI software tools that may incur greater financial costs or fail to meet their specific needs, small businesses can benefit from AI education to develop affordable, customizable AI solutions tailored to their detailed requirements. Most importantly, AI education and training programs are critical to preserve the jobs of those in the small business industry and avoid job displacement. Businesses can train their employees to manage AI technology, meaningfully enhancing their workforce rather than displacing individuals as AI is increasingly incorporated into their business models.
Vanderbilt has followed suit in recognizing AI’s impact by making AI education accessible for its students. Through the College of Arts and Science Grand Challenge Initiative, Vanderbilt offers a variety of AI classes that students can take focused on the implications of AI across disciplines, such as Ethics in Artificial Intelligence and AI and Society. Additionally, Vanderbilt’s new AI lab, the Vanderbilt Lab for Immersive AI Translation (VALIANT), demonstrates how AI is being used to solve real-world challenges. VALIANT is an excellent resource for students to stay informed about or get involved in active research in the AI sector, as well as the latest tools, technologies, and developments in the community. With all of the AI resources Vanderbilt has to offer, students can not only gain a deep understanding of AI technology, but also learn to apply it to their passions and make meaningful contributions to society.
References
Coltey, E., Alonso, D., Vassigh, S., & Chen, S. C. (2022). Towards an AI-driven marketplace for small businesses during COVID-19. SN Computer Science, 3(6), 441.
Farahani, M. S., & Ghasemi, G. (2024). Artificial intelligence and inequality: challenges and opportunities. Qeios, 7, 1-14.
Mantri, A., & Mishra, R. (2023). Empowering small businesses with the force of big data analytics and AI: A technological integration for enhanced business management. The Journal of High Technology Management Research, 34(2), 100476.