The impact of artificial intelligence on human society and bioethics
Studies have shown that AI can reflect the very prejudices humans have tried to overcome. As AI becomes “truly ubiquitous,” it has a tremendous potential to positively impact all manner of life, from industry to employment to health care and even security. Addressing the risks associated with the technology, Janosch Delcker, Politico Europe's AI correspondent, said: “I don't think AI will ever be free of bias, at least not as long as we stick to machine learning as we know it today,”…. “What's crucially important, I believe, is to recognize that those biases exist and that policymakers try to mitigate them” [17]. The High-Level Expert Group on AI of the European Union presented Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI in 2019 that suggested AI systems must be accountable, explainable, and unbiased. Three emphases are given:
- Lawful-respecting all applicable laws and regulations
- Ethical-respecting ethical principles and values
- Robust-being adaptive, reliable, fair, and trustworthy from a technical perspective while taking into account its social environment [18].
Seven requirements are recommended [18]:
- AI should not trample on human autonomy. People should not be manipulated or coerced by AI systems, and humans should be able to intervene or oversee every decision that the software makes
- AI should be secure and accurate. It should not be easily compromised by external attacks, and it should be reasonably reliable
- Personal data collected by AI systems should be secure and private. It should not be accessible to just anyone, and it should not be easily stolen
- Data and algorithms used to create an AI system should be accessible, and the decisions made by the software should be “understood and traced by human beings.” In other words, operators should be able to explain the decisions their AI systems make
- Services provided by AI should be available to all, regardless of age, gender, race, or other characteristics. Similarly, systems should not be biased along these lines
- AI systems should be sustainable (i.e., they should be ecologically responsible) and “enhance positive social change”
- AI systems should be auditable and covered by existing protections for corporate whistleblowers. The negative impacts of systems should be acknowledged and reported in advance.
From these guidelines, we can suggest that future AI must be equipped with human sensibility or “AI humanities.” To accomplish this, AI researchers, manufacturers, and all industries must bear in mind that technology is to serve not to manipulate humans and his society. Bostrom and Judkowsky listed responsibility, transparency, auditability, incorruptibility, and predictability [19] as criteria for the computerized society to think about.