An Artificial Intelligence (AI) expert, Olajide Olugbade, has charged private and public organisations to maintain effective corporate governance systems in compliance with regulatory requirements.
Olugbade, who was a governance, risk, and compliance consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Nigeria, stated this at the 49th annual conference of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Nigeria (ICSAN), recently held in Lagos.
Delivering the keynote address on the theme: “Reimagining Governance: Navigating the Artificial Intelligence Revolution for Excellence,” Olugbade said, “AI governance is not just another fad or buzzword; it is a crucial aspect of technology governance that must be embedded within the corporate governance structures of organisations if they are to survive the disruption that AI systems are causing across sectors. It has also become a necessity for the adequate management of the ethical and societal implications of AI systems.
“However, right implementation is important. Organisations should not just jump on the bandwagon of AI governance; they have to do it right,” he stated.
He added, “Participants at the ICSAN conference have identified crucial elements of the implementation process, such as accountability mechanisms, including board oversight of AI governance. But there is a risk that this can all be done as an organizational makeover without real impact”.
He noted that organisations engage in what he called ethics washing, advertising the establishment of ethics offices as a means of ethical governance, “in this case of AI systems, which are merely symbolic but do not actually have the power to ensure responsible innovation practices in the organisation. Nigerian organisations must steer clear of this in their implementation of AI governance.”
The AI expert added that AI governance must possess organisational power, which he identified as consisting of the ability to help the organisation cope effectively with uncertainty in its environment, not easily substitutable, and central to the organisational processes, saying, “only by ensuring this will organisations reap the gains of AI governance.”
Similarly, the Group Executive Director of Chams Holding Company, Femi Oyenuga, stressed that AI should be seen as a governance inflection point requiring urgent systemic oversight.
For his part, the President and Chairman of the ICSAN Council, Uto Ukpanah, also spoke of the Institute’s plans to equip members, lead discussions on AI governance in Nigeria, and advocate for the updating of board charters to include AI governance responsibilities.
