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Ethical Issues of AI

What ethical issues does AI raise?

Using 10 case studies, 5 scenarios, reviews of various bodies of literature, an online survey with more than 300 respondents, 45 stakeholder interviews, and an expert Delphi study, SHERPA identified a significant number of ethical issues, as shown in the following figure.

We use the term ethical issues to denote issues that were perceived to be problematic by our respondents. These explicitly include issues that are already covered by human rights and other legislation (e.g. privacy, discrimination) but also cover issues that are less clearly specified (e.g. transparency, loss of human contact) or closely related to technical aspects (e.g. security)

Machine learning

Some ethical issues are directly related to AI in the narrow sense, most prominently to machine learning, currently often implemented through neural networks. This type of AI is characterised by opacity, unpredictability and, typically, the need for large data sets for training and validation.

Ethical issues linked to this type of AI include

bias
discrimination
security breaches
data protection issues

Socio-technical systems

This understanding of AI points to ethical issues arising from living in a digital world. These socio-technical systems appear to act autonomously, they structure the way humans can act and have significant social impact.

They lead to ethical issues such as:

unequal access to power and resources
unfair distribution of costs and benefits of technology
impact on warfare and killing of humans by machines

Metaphysical issues

While currently no AI exists that can be described as artificial general intelligence, i.e. that has human cognitive capabilities, these systems figure prominently in the literature and in people's imagination. Such systems would potentially raise ethical issues such as:

hostility towards humanity by superintelligent machines
changing perception of humans base on machine

The ethical issues linked to the three different categories of AI listed above are very different in nature and scope. Some may be subject to simple and straightforward resolutions, others will require political interventions, some may be impossible to resolve and require continuous reflection.

However, all of these issues can legitimately be seen as ethical issues linked to AI. Any recommendation that aims to address ethics of AI needs to be cognisant of the breadth of issues and ensure that recommendations are clearly delineated and the relevant concepts well defined.

References

Ryan, M., Antoniou, J., Brooks, L., Jiya, T., Macnish, K., & Stahl, B. (2020). The Ethical Balance of Using Smart Information Systems for Promoting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability, 12(12), 4826. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12124826

Ryan, M., & Stahl, B. C. (2020). Artificial intelligence ethics guidelines for developers and users: Clarifying their content and normative implications. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-12-2019-0138

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