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Document Type

Book Section

Language

English (en)

Publication Date

2025

Publication Title

AI and Society

Abstract

AI technologies promise many benefits, but they can also have significant negative impacts on human health, safety, well-being, and fundamental rights. This chapter explores the different governance tools that have been considered for guiding developments in AI in socially beneficial ways, examining the relevance of ethics, law, and policy. Each of these approaches offer tools to address these concerns; however, each has limitations, and none provides a complete solution in itself. Statements of ethical principles can articulate high-level values and goals to guide behavior but are usually quite vague and difficult to operationalize. They also lack any enforcement mechanism. In contrast, legal rules are enforceable through court action and offer a way to compensate those suffering actual harms. However, the complexity and opacity of AI poses challenges to legal liability regimes by making it difficult to parse questions of causation and culpability. In addition, legal rules may not keep up with the rapid evolution of AI technologies. Policy tools are more flexible and forward-looking, and can help to anticipate and prevent harms, but may be ineffective if they lack robust standards or fail to require meaningful accountability from those who develop and deploy AI tools. Because each strategy has strengths and limitations, preventing social harms from the application of AI will require leveraging all three types of tools in complementary ways.

Keywords

AI, Health, Safety, Well-Being, Fundamental Rights, Ethics, Law, Policy, Artificial Intelligence, Ethical Principles, High-Level Values, Goals, Enforcement Mechanism, Legal Rules, Compensation, Complexity, Opacity, Legal Liability Regimes, Causation, Culpability, Harm Prevention, Accountability, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), Privacy, Bias, Discrimination, Facial Recognition Systems, Regulation, Disparate Treatment, Disparate Impact, Data Mining, Algorithm, Predictive Models, Omnibus Approach to Data Protection, Privacy Self-management, Consent, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Individual Rights-based Approach, Risk Management Frameworks, Risk Regulation Model

Publication Citation

Pauline Kim & Ryan Durrie, AI Ethics, Law, and Policy, in AI and Society (Mukhopadhyay, Ayan & Vorobeychik, Yevgeniy eds., forthcoming 2025)

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