Ethical Behavior and Legal Regulations in Artificial Intelligence

[EN] The European Union is also working intensively on the ethical development and use of artificial intelligence. The European Parliament, which commented on the issue of intelligent autonomous robots in January 2017, expressed the need to supplement the existing legal framework with ethical principles and an "effective ethical framework for the development, manufacture, use and modification of robots". This ethical framework should be based on the principles of expediency, harmlessness, autonomy and justice. The study analyzes the interconnection of ethical and legal rules in the field of AI and shows possible directions of development.Published with the support of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR), project number TL01000299.Hauer, T. (2022). Ethical Behavior and Legal Regulations in Artificial Intelligence. En 4th International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2022). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 9-14. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2022.2022.1501391

Liberating Intelligent Machines with Financial Instruments

In science fiction, Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics, as presented in his novel I, Robot, are the classical starting point for machine responsibility analysis.1 Machine ethics research has widely followed Asimov's example2. Murphy and Woods3 propose alternative laws inspired by Asimov's original laws that emphasize a developer’s view on the ethics of robotics. In these works, machine responsibility is presented from the ethical point of view, but product liability issues are mostly absent, as is legal analysis. The present state of robot legal liability issues is to some extent described in existing literature.4 This paper addresses responsible robotics from a legal perspective. However, instead of focusing on ethical considerations elaborated in philosophy and Artificial Intelligence (AI)5 communities6, the legal liability risks related to inherently error-prone intelligent machines are considered and a solution combining legal and economical components is proposed. Because of the technological difficulties in creating perfectly functioning machines and the cognitive element inherent in intelligent machines and machine interactions, we propose a new kind of legal approach, i.e. a financial instrument liberating the machine. In this framework, a machine can become an ultimate machine by emancipating itself from its manufacturer/owner/operator. This can be achieved through the creation of a legal framework around this ultimate machine that in itself has economic value. We start this article by assessing the liability risks related to intelligent machines. Currently, the manufacturer or operator is held liable depending on the circumstances. Thereafter we will examine the management of the risks by technical and legal means, i.e. by means of liability stocks liberating the machine. The article relates to the European context. However, the solution can easily be adapted to other jurisdictions

A neo-aristotelian perspective on the need for artificial moral agents (AMAs)

We examine Van Wynsberghe and Robbins (JAMA 25:719-735, 2019) critique of the need for Artifcial Moral Agents (AMAs) and its rebuttal by Formosa and Ryan (JAMA 10.1007/s00146-020-01089-6, 2020) set against a neo-Aristotelian ethical background. Neither Van Wynsberghe and Robbins (JAMA 25:719-735, 2019) essay nor Formosa and Ryan’s (JAMA 10.1007/s00146-020-01089-6, 2020) is explicitly framed within the teachings of a specifc ethical school. The former appeals to the lack of “both empirical and intuitive support” (Van Wynsberghe and Robbins 2019, p. 721) for AMAs, and the latter opts for “argumentative breadth over depth”, meaning to provide “the essential groundwork for making an all things considered judgment regarding the moral case for building AMAs” (Formosa and Ryan 2019, pp. 1–2). Although this strategy may beneft their acceptability, it may also detract from their ethical rootedness, coherence, and persuasiveness, characteristics often associated with consolidated ethical traditions. Neo-Aristotelian ethics, backed by a distinctive philosophical anthropology and worldview, is summoned to fll this gap as a standard to test these two opposing claims. It provides a substantive account of moral agency through the theory of voluntary action; it explains how voluntary action is tied to intelligent and autonomous human life; and it distinguishes machine operations from voluntary actions through the categories of poiesis and praxis respectively. This standpoint reveals that while Van Wynsberghe and Robbins may be right in rejecting the need for AMAs, there are deeper, more fundamental reasons. In addition, despite disagreeing with Formosa and Ryan’s defense of AMAs, their call for a more nuanced and context-dependent approach, similar to neo-Aristotelian practical wisdom, becomes expedient

Discrimination-aware data analysis for criminal intelligence

The growing use of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in many application domains such as healthcare, business, education and criminal justice has evolved great promises as well challenges. ML pledges in proficiently analysing a large amount of data quickly and effectively by identifying patterns and providing insight into the data, which otherwise would have been impossible for a human to execute in this scale. However, the use of ML algorithms, in sensitive domains such as the Criminal Intelligence Analysis (CIA) system, demands extremely careful deployment. Data has an important impact in ML process. To understand the ethical and privacy issues related to data and ML, the VALCRI (Visual Analytics for sense-making in the CRiminal Intelligence analysis) system was used . VALCRI is a CIA system that integrated machine-learning techniques to improve the effectiveness of crime data analysis. At the most basic level, from our research, it was found that lack of harmonised interpretation of different privacy principles, trade-offs between competing ethical principles, and algorithmic opacity as concerning ethical and privacy issues among others. This research aims to alleviate these issues by investigating awareness of ethical and privacy issues related to data and ML. Document analysis and interviews were conducted to examine the way different privacy principles were understood in selected EU countries. The study takes a qualitative and quantitative research approach and is guided by various methods of analysis including interviews, observation, case study, experiment and legal document analysis. The findings of this research indicate that a lack of ethical awareness on data has an impact on ML outcome. Also, due to the opaque nature of the ML system, it is difficult to scrutinize and as a consequence, it leads to a lack of clarity in terms of how certain decisions were made. This thesis provides some novel solutions that can be used to tackle these issues

4th. International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2022)

Research methods in economics and social sciences are evolving with the increasing availability of Internet and Big Data sources of information. As these sources, methods, and applications become more interdisciplinary, the 4th International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA) is a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas and advances on how emerging research methods and sources are applied to different fields of social sciences as well as to discuss current and future challenges. Due to the covid pandemic, CARMA 2022 is planned as a virtual and face-to-face conference, simultaneouslyDoménech I De Soria, J.; Vicente Cuervo, MR. (2022). 4th. International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2022). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2022.2022.1595

A roboethics framework for the development and introduction of social assistive robots in elderly care

There is an emerging “aging phenomenon” worldwide. It is likely that we will require the introduction of assistive technologies that can assist caregivers in the exercise of elderly care. Such technologies should be designed in ways that promote high levels of human dignity and quality of life through the aging process. Social Assistive Robots (SARs) demonstrate high potential for complementing elderly care when it comes to cognitive assistance, entertainment, communication and supervision. However such close Human Robotics Interactions (HRIs) encompass a rich set of ethical scenarios that need to be addressed before SARs are introduced into mass markets. To date the HRI benchmarks of “Imitation”, “Safety”, “Autonomy”, “Privacy”, “Scalability”, “Social success” and “Understanding of the domain” are the only guidelines to inform SARs developers when developing robotic prototypes for human assistance. However such HRI benchmarks are broad and lack of theoretical background to understand potential ethical issues in elderly care. Further, there is little guidance for either developers or those involved in the provision of care, regarding the appropriate introduction of SARs.In this research the current HRI benchmarks are reviewed alongside the core ethical principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and justice, together with a social care ethos. Based on such interpretation, practical robotics workshops were conducted in five care and extra care institutions with the direct participation of elderly groups, caregivers and relatives. “In-situ” robotics demonstrations, informal interviews and observations were conducted, investigating human behaviours, attitudes, expectations, concerns, and levels of acceptance towards the introduction of SARs in elderly care settings. Following a thematic analysis of the findings, a roboethics framework is proposed to support the research and development of SARs. The developed framework highlights the importance of selection, categorization and completion of relevant HRI benchmarks, HRI templates, HRI supervision schemes and ethical specifications for SARs applications