Kent State Professor Michele Ewing, as a member of the Board of Ethics and Professional Standards (BEPS) for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), co-authored guidelines, “Promise & Pitfalls: The Ethical Use of AI for Public Relations Practitioners,” outlining best practices to prevent and manage ethical issues related to AI integration. In this article, she discusses the importance of ethics in using artificial intelligence and how she incorporates it into her classrooms.
How often do you interact with artificial intelligence (AI) each day? Do you communicate with a chatbot for customer service? Does your fitness tracker remind you to move? Do you receive product recommendations based on previous purchases? Do you use AI to help you with school or work? As a public relations professor, I’m studying the ethical use of AI in the public relations field and guiding my students to ethically use AI tools.
AI is increasingly used in public relations practice and we must ensure AI aligns responsibly with communication strategies. AI-driven public relations practices can help public relations professionals work more efficiently and effectively; however, AI raises many ethical dilemmas.
For example, AI algorithms may present inherent biases since AI systems learn from historical data. If that data is biased, it can lead to communicating stereotypes and/or discriminatory behaviors. Other AI-related ethical concerns include copyright infringement, factual errors and misinformation, fake information and disinformation, transparency, privacy issues, information security, and negative social consequences, among others. These ethical issues can result in undermining trust between organizations and their audiences.
In my classes, I tell my students I expect them to learn how to ethically use AI tools. They will need to understand these tools in their future careers. I emphasize checking facts, verifying sources of information and being transparent about AI use. As future public relations professionals, my students must learn to advocate for transparency with AI adoption for content development, chatbots, and other uses in public relations practice. They need to understand the importance of communicating to audiences about how AI is used and explain the decision-making process for AI tools.
It’s vital to recognize the value of human connections to mitigate these ethical challenges. As a member of the Board of Ethics and Professional Standards (BEPS) for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), I co-authored guidelines, “Promise & Pitfalls: The Ethical Use of AI for Public Relations Practitioners,” outlining best practices to prevent and manage ethical issues related to AI integration. This guidance aligns with five provisions from PRSA’s Code of Ethics: Free Flow of Information, Competition, Disclosure of Information, Safeguarding Confidences, and Enhancing the Profession. In these guidelines, each provision is defined and examined in the context of generative AI tools, accompanied by examples of both improper and proper use.
Educators, students, and professionals must adopt a lifelong learning approach to understand the advantages and risks of integrating technology, particularly AI, into public relations practice. Human interaction remains indispensable.
Learn more about Kent State’s public relations major and minor in the School of Media and Journalism.
Michele E. Ewing, APR, Fellow PRSA, is a professor and public relations-sequence coordinator in the School of Media & Journalism at Kent State University. Connect with her via email (meewing@kent.edu) or LinkedIn (meewing).