The Ethics of AI Ethics: An Evaluation of Guidelines

TLDR

Recent advances in AI have sparked extensive discourse and led to the release of multiple ethics guidelines that set normative principles to harness AI’s disruptive potential. The study aims to evaluate and compare 22 AI ethics guidelines, identifying overlaps and gaps, and to assess how well their principles are implemented in practice and how effectiveness can be improved. The authors conduct a semi‑systematic comparison of 22 guidelines, examining overlaps, omissions, and the implementation of ethical principles in AI research, development, and application. The analysis yields a detailed overview of the AI ethics field.

Abstract

Abstract Current advances in research, development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) systems have yielded a far-reaching discourse on AI ethics. In consequence, a number of ethics guidelines have been released in recent years. These guidelines comprise normative principles and recommendations aimed to harness the “disruptive” potentials of new AI technologies. Designed as a semi-systematic evaluation, this paper analyzes and compares 22 guidelines, highlighting overlaps but also omissions. As a result, I give a detailed overview of the field of AI ethics. Finally, I also examine to what extent the respective ethical principles and values are implemented in the practice of research, development and application of AI systems—and how the effectiveness in the demands of AI ethics can be improved.