I have a confession: AI ethics makes my brain hurt. The issues and questions are that big. Never mind corporate behavior; people, governments, policies and global geopolitics will all evolve differently depending on how we answer those questions. My brain is hurting right now. But if you're a marketer planning to use AI, you're going to hurt a lot more than your brain if you don't start examining the ethical questions. I

It seems to me the science of AI (technology that artificially replicates the way the human brain perceives, reacts and learns) is regularly underappreciated. We naturally take for granted the human brain's ability to perform simple tasks such as listening and understanding, or seeing and identifying -- but these brain functions have evolved over millions of years to become refined and automatic. What's required for a computer to mimic these capabilities shouldn't be underestimated.

When you follow artificial intelligence, you're constantly reading about how this company or that one is developing systems that learn the way people learn, or that mimic the way the human brain works. So, no surprise: I've talked to prominent AI developers who study neuroscience. Consequently, I started reading popular brain books (for lay people). I eventually worked my way up to the challenging and ambitious "Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain," by noted UC Berkeley neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. I've written before about a seminal quote of his from a previous book: "Humans are not either thinking machines …