Technology often brings detractors, this we know. As a business ethics consultant, business ethics keynote speaker, author and an entrepreneur, I have witnessed the raging debated over artificial intelligence or “AI.” The technology is vilified or elevated dependent upon who is explaining and who is affected.
Part of the issue in my belief, is that AI’s applications are often viewed a lens of doing evil and not good (“It’s taking away my job,” “AI is stealing my movie idea.”). However, a story out of Homeland Security may come to at least tip the scale.
Opioids
There is possibly no scourge that has affected the United States worse than Opioids. What started as a medication to relieve “immovable and crippling” pain, was unethically marketed, distributed and created a deadly epidemic far worse than anything fears over COVID-19 might have conjured. The deaths, addictions and sheer human tragedy from illegal Opioids are almost incalculable.
The weakness of Opioids may not be chemical or its susceptibility to Narcan, but something far more basic – perhaps “boring.” Its weakness may be financial. For its components must be manufactured in factories, shipped to facilities for combination and then distributed.
On Tuesday, September 18, 2023, Homeland Security released its report entitled: “Strategy for Combating Illicit Opioids.”
According to Greg Norman, Fox News (September 20, 2023): “[The report’s strategy] says it is based on four goals: reducing the international and domestic supply; attacking the enablers of opioid trafficking such as illicit finance; cybercrime and weapons smuggling; and conducting outreach with private industry.”
While AI can’t make actual arrests or chase down cartels it can advise when and where most likely detections will occur.
“The report calls for the creation of the Cross-Border Financial Crime Center, which will be a partnership between federal law enforcement agencies, partner nation authorities, U.S. regulatory organizations, banks and other financial institutions, and financial technology companies aimed at achieving enhanced information sharing on financial crime and the illicit use of cryptocurrencies.”
Closer examination
A much closer examination of the Opioid (Fentanyl) supply chain reveals an obvious motivator: profitability. The entire trade would be wiped out if there was no profit reason to do so. The trade is extremely profitable and unscrupulous or unknowing suppliers contribute to the trade. Though China has been implicated in the importation of chemicals to Mexico to produce the drugs they are not alone. According to Homeland Security:
“There are indications, however, that certain key chemicals originate from the United States. HSI will establish the Chemical Industry Outreach Project to proactively engage domestic chemical companies exporting licit precursor chemicals to Mexico and Central America to counter this trend.”
As a business ethics consultant, business ethics keynote speaker, business ethics author who has spoken to the healthcare, pharmaceutical and chemical industries at various times it deeply pains me to think U.S. companies are also involved.
What AI can accomplish quite effectively is to augment all four major objectives of Homeland Security in stemming foreign production of Fentanyl. AI can track the banking system to find links between production and illicit finance; it can look for cybercrime and track weapons shipments; it can financially identify and tag would be traffickers and can conduct outreach to private chemical companies.
The key determinant in the effectiveness of the program is the compliance part.
None of the components of the Chemical Industry Outreach Project, for example, can be effective unless there is a high degree of ethics and transparency. So long as profits replace ethics, what is to stop any manufacturer from shipping to Mexico under the guise of legitimate product usage? The same is true with tracking cryptocurrencies and cybercrimes. The crypto world has repeatedly been rocked by scandal; the key players must group together and work with the government – at least in this instance to enhance regulation.
I don’t think anyone is expecting to stem the flow of Opioids over-night however, if AI is given the chance to fully prove its value, it is well-worth the try. This could be AI’s best ethical moment. As a business ethics consultant and business ethics keynote speaker we must give the technology a fair trial. “Only” the lives of our loved ones could be helped with this important initiative, for sure Opioid addiction has touched nearly every family in America.
