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AI Ethics in Industry: A Research Framework
Ville Vakkuri, Kai-Kristian Kemell, Pekka Abrahamsson
October 28, 2019
Conference on Technology Ethics
27 citations
3 influential
Key Takeaways
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AI ethics implementation remains largely underdeveloped in practice: While academic and public discussion about AI ethics has grown following real-world incidents, the paper identifies a significant gap—there are few established frameworks for actually putting ethics into practice in industrial settings where AI systems are being built and deployed.
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Real-world AI incidents are driving the ethics conversation: The paper notes that "various real-world incidents" have made the negative impacts of AI systems evident, suggesting that practical harms have motivated the shift toward taking AI ethics seriously rather than theoretical concerns alone.
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A research framework is needed to bridge theory and practice: The authors propose that understanding how to implement AI ethics in industrial contexts requires dedicated research frameworks, indicating that current approaches may be too abstract or disconnected from how companies actually develop AI systems.
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AI ethics implementation is still evolving: The framework presented is described as "a starting point" that is "still being developed further based on its practical utilization," suggesting that responsible AI practices in industry are nascent and will continue to mature as organizations gain experience implementing them.
Abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems exert a growing influence on our society. As they become more ubiquitous, their potential negative impacts also become evident through various real-world incidents. Following such early incidents, academic and public discussion on AI ethics has highlighted the need for implementing ethics in AI system development. However, little currently exists in the way of frameworks for understanding the practical implementation of AI ethics. In this paper, we discuss a research framework for implementing AI ethics in industrial settings. The framework presents a starting point for empirical studies into AI ethics but is still being developed further based on its practical utilization.