Laws and policies don't cover every situation. Ethical reasoning helps teams make defensible choices.
Common AI Principles
Most organisational and international AI principles share themes:
- Beneficence: do good.
- Non-maleficence: avoid harm.
- Autonomy: respect people's choices.
- Justice: fairness and equitable distribution of benefits and burdens.
- Explicability: transparency and accountability.
Ethical Lenses
- Consequences: who benefits, who's harmed, how much?
- Duties and rights: what obligations and rights are at stake?
- Fairness: are people treated equally, and are disadvantaged groups protected?
- Character: what would a responsible organisation do?
A Practical Process
- Describe the decision and options.
- Identify stakeholders.
- Consider each option through several lenses.
- Seek diverse perspectives, including affected people.
- Decide, document reasoning and plan to review.
Principles to Practice
Turn principles into concrete requirements, tests and review steps; otherwise they remain words on a page.