Abstract
Over the past few years, there has been a proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) strategies, released by governments around the world, that seek to maximise the benefits of AI and minimise potential harms. This article provides a comparative analysis of the European Union (EU) and the United States’ (US) AI strategies and considers (i) the visions of a ‘Good AI Society’ that are forwarded in key policy documents and their opportunity costs, (ii) the extent to which the implementation of each vision is living up to stated aims and (iii) the consequences that these differing visions of a ‘Good AI Society’ have for transatlantic cooperation. The article concludes by comparing the ethical desirability of each vision and identifies areas where the EU, and especially the US, need to improve in order to achieve ethical outcomes and deepen cooperation.
Highlights
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a cluster of smart technologies, ranging from machine learning software, to natural language processing applications, to robotics, that has unprecedented capacity to reshape individual lives, societies and the environment (Floridi et al, 2018)
The article concluded that the documents analysed addressed a variety of ethical, social and economic factors associated with AI, but that none provided an overarching, long-term political vision for the development of a ‘Good AI Society’, nor a clear indication of what such a society would look like in reality
We identify and assess key themes in each, which includes improving economic, social and ethical outcomes domestically; developing a position on AI for defence and international relations externally; and the internal fragmentation of policy outcomes when these strategies are applied in practice
Summary
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a cluster of smart technologies, ranging from machine learning software, to natural language processing applications, to robotics, that has unprecedented capacity to reshape individual lives, societies and the environment (Floridi et al, 2018). Many other states have demonstrated a keen interest in AI governance, with over 60 releasing AI policy documents (OECD.AI, 2021a, 2021b), a reflection and consequence of the current ‘summer’ which AI is experiencing (Floridi, 2020a; Tsamados et al, 2021) Given these policy developments and the significant societal impact that AI technologies are increasingly having, it is important to revisit these AI strategies to assess their differences and the extent to which long-term visions have been developed. We place ourselves between these two extremes, in the middle ground of ethical pluralism.2 This means that we consider there to be many different valid visions of a ‘Good AI Society’, but that each one needs to be underpinned by a set of values that are viewed at national and international levels as desirable. While some fundamental values may be interpreted in the EU and US, other values may differ, at least in terms of their order of priority and level of importance, and may underlie different visions of a ‘Good AI Society’
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