4.2 Ethical issues of AI

AI development creates many ethical issues

The development of AI raises a number of important ethical issues, including:

Bias and Fairness

AI algorithms can be accidentally or deliberately functionally biased through specific contents of information they are trained on. The specific contents of information can perpetuate existing inequalities and discriminatory outcomes. It is critically important to ensure that AI systems are developed and deployed fairly, and do not disproportionately and unfairly impact and discriminate against specific groups of Humans.

Transparency and Explainability

The highly distributed and multi-layered Neural Network structure that mathematically underpins most AI implementations can be very difficult to understand and is operationally opaque, making it challenging to evaluate an AI’s decisions and ensure that an AI is making ethical and responsible choices. It is important to build AI generated responses that are well measured and appropriate for Human use, and that the people who are building AI can continually maintain a reasonable level of understanding of how decisions are being made.

Privacy and Surveillance

AI can be used to collect, analyze and logically link enormous amounts of information about individuals, raising concerns about privacy and surveillance. It is important to ensure that AI systems are developed and used in ways that respect individual privacy and do not violate normally accepted Human rights.

Accountability and Responsibility

As AI systems become more autonomous and make decisions on their own, it may become difficult to assign responsibility and legal liability for their actions. It is important to ensure that AI developers and users are held accountable for the actions of their systems, and that there are clear processes in place for addressing harm caused by AI. For example, if a future level 5 fully autonomous vehicle drives straight through a dense crowd of people on a busy street, exactly who is really legally liable for the injuries and deaths. The company that built the vehicle, or the owner who put the vehicle into self-driving mode.

Human Control and Autonomy

As AI systems become more advanced, there is a risk that they could become less controllable or make some decisions that are not aligned with Human values. It is important to ensure that AI systems are developed and used in ways that respect Human autonomy and control, and that people have the ability to intervene in AI decision-making processes.

Employment and Workforce Displacement

As AI systems become more advanced, there is a genuine risk that they could displace Human workers and lead to job losses. It is important to ensure that AI systems are developed and used in ways that support Human employment and workforce development, and that people are not left behind in the transition to an AI-based economy.

The development of AI raises a number of important ethical issues that need to be addressed to ensure that AI is developed and used in ways that are fair, transparent, and aligned with Human values.