European Union's Ethics Guidelines for AI

• Pages: 17-21

17

EUROPEAN UNION’S ETHICS GUIDELINES FOR AI

The European Union set up the High Level Expert Group for AI (HLEG)

        

European Union. The HLEG produced a document entitled Ethics Guidelines

for Trustworthy AI (Ethics Guidelines). According to this report, if certain re-

quirements are met, AI applications can be trustworthy. In this chapter we will

give a quick overview of this document, later we will discuss them in detail.

The Ethics Guidelines states: “AI is not an end in itself, but rather a prom-



societal well-being and the common good, as well as bringing progress and in-

  

of AI can help with problems as varied as promoting gender balance, tackling

climate change, rationalising our use of natural resources, and enhancing our

health and our social cohesion indicators. It concludes that AI systems need

to be human-centric, resting on a commitment to their use in the service of

humanity and the common good, with the goal of improving human welfare

and freedom.

While offering great opportunities, recalls the report, AI systems also give

rise to certain risks that must be handled appropriately and proportionately.

We now have an important window of opportunity to shape their development. We

want to ensure that we can trust the socio-technical environments in which they are

embedded. We also want producers of AI systems to get a competitive advantage by

embedding Trustworthy AI in their products and services. This entails seeking to max-

       

their risks. (European Commission, 2019)

The trustworthy AI concept is at the core of the European experts com-

mittee’s proposal on how to deal with potential harms arising from using AI

technology with personal data. The Ethics Guidelines starts like this:

The aim of the Ethics Guidelines is to promote Trustworthy AI. Trustworthy AI has

three components, which should be met throughout the system’s entire life cycle: (1)

it should be lawful, complying with all applicable laws and regulations (2) it should be

ethical, ensuring adherence to ethical principles and values and (3) it should be robust,

both from a technical and social perspective since, even with good intentions, AI sys-

tems can cause unintentional harm. (European Commission, 2019)