Abstract
Current advances in research, development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) systems have yielded a far-reaching discourse on AI ethics. In consequence, a number of ethics guidelines have been released in recent years. These guidelines comprise normative principles and recommendations aimed to harness the “disruptive” potentials of new AI technologies. Designed as a semi-systematic evaluation, this paper analyzes and compares 22 guidelines, highlighting overlaps but also omissions. As a result, I give a detailed overview of the field of AI ethics. Finally, I also examine to what extent the respective ethical principles and values are implemented in the practice of research, development and application of AI systems—and how the effectiveness in the demands of AI ethics can be improved.
Highlights
The current AI boom is accompanied by constant calls for applied ethics, which are meant to harness the “disruptive” potentials of new AI technologies
While especially the paper from Jobin et al (2019) is a systematic scoping review of all the existing literature on AI ethics, this paper does not aim at a full analysis of every available soft-law or non-legal norm document on AI, algorithm, robot, or data ethics, but rather a semi-systematic overview of issues and normative stances in the field, demonstrating how the details of AI ethics relate to a bigger picture
This metaphor proves to be true in the context of AI, where huge sums of money are invested in the development and commercial utilization of systems based on machine learning (Rosenberg 2017), while ethical considerations are mainly used for public relations purposes (Boddington 2017, 56)
Summary
The current AI boom is accompanied by constant calls for applied ethics, which are meant to harness the “disruptive” potentials of new AI technologies. The association “Partnership on AI” (2018) which brings together companies such as Amazon, Apple, Baidu, Facebook, Google, IBM and Intel is exemplary in this context Companies can highlight their membership in such associations whenever the notion of serious commitment to legal regulation of business activities needs to be stifled. This prompts the question as to what extent ethical objectives are implemented and embedded in the development and application of AI, or whether merely good intentions are deployed. I compare the principles formulated in the guidelines with the concrete practice of research and development of AI systems. In a third and final step, I will work out ideas on how AI ethics can be transformed from a merely discursive phenomenon into concrete directions for action
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