Ethics at centre of the use and development of artificial intelligence in UK AI continues to develop in the UK, due to the growth of available data, computer processing power and improved techniques such as deep learning. The House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence has recently published a report that puts ethics at the centre of the use and development of Artificial Intelligence within the UK. The House of Lords appointed the Committee “to consider the economic, ethical and social implications of advances in artificial intelligence” on 29 June 2017. The committee observed that the debate around exactly what is, and is not, artificial intelligence, would merit a study of its own. For practical purposes its says it adopted the definition used by the Government in its Industrial Strategy White Paper, which defined AI as Technologies with the ability to perform tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, and language translation. The committee reports that from the outset of the inquiry, it has asked its members and its witnesses, five key questions: - How does AI affect people in their everyday lives, and how is this likely to change? - What are the potential opportunities presented by artificial intelligence for the United Kingdom? How can these be realised? - What are the possible risks and implications of artificial intelligence? How can these be avoided? - How should the public be engaged with in a responsible manner about AI? -What are the ethical issues presented by the development and use of artificial intelligence?
The committee concluded that, while the UK should realise and harness the potential benefits of AI, it may have many social and political impacts which extend well beyond people’s lives as workers and consumers and its potential threats and risks need to be minimised. In order to achieve this balance, the committee suggested an AI code to provide ethical guidance for the development and application of AI. The five main overarching principles of the code are as follows: 1. Artificial intelligence should be developed for the common good and benefit of humanity. 2. Artificial intelligence should operate on principles of intelligibility and fairness. 3. Artificial intelligence should not be used to diminish the data rights or privacy of individuals, families or communities. 4. All citizens have the right to be educated to enable them to flourish mentally, emotionally and economically alongside artificial intelligence. 5. The autonomous power to hurt, destroy or deceive human beings should never be vested in artificial intelligence. The report also recommends that the Law Commission investigate whether existing liability law will be sufficient when AI systems malfunction or cause harm to users.