{"id":12212,"date":"2022-03-21T11:13:38","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T09:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.synthesis.co.za\/making-music-from-your-data-with-etl\/"},"modified":"2022-03-21T11:29:25","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T09:29:25","slug":"ai-ethics-and-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.synthesis.co.za\/ai-ethics-and-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"AI, ethics and human rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Archana Arakkal, Practice Lead: Intelligent Data Engineering<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day as an ML Engineer I seek new ways to provide value to further enhance our lifestyles through AI and while there are several problems seeking solutions and we may think that AI could be these solutions, very often a glass ceiling is reached where the limitations are glaringly obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an AI enthusiast, I speak for many when I say that AI is great, but AI is never a replacement for human beings. The very nature of AI is artificial and while there are benefits that AI may offer, we need to always ground our thinking around what this means for human beings and the society we live in, and it is even more important to implement these human-centric solutions sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our saving grace now is AI ethics and Responsible AI \u2013 but what exactly does this mean for us as a society?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking it back to first principles: \u201cEthics are the moral principles that govern a person\u2019s behavior or the conducting of an activity\u201d another definition is \u201cthe branch of philosophy that involves systematising, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the sake of not debating morality, I\u2019d like to take a step into what determines whether something is wrong or right and by extension what parameters determine the use of AI in a morally sound manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering that AI is attempting to mimic human intelligence (often unsuccessfully) would it not make sense to use concepts such as the universal declaration of human rights (UDHR) to govern AI ethics \u2013 a recent report titled \u201cArtificial Intelligence and Human Rights: Opportunities and Risks\u201d seems to agree and this is a basic argument \u201cThe UDHR provides us with a (1) guiding framework that is (2) universally agreed upon and that results in (3) legally binding rules\u2014in contradistinction to \u201cethics\u201d, which is (1) a matter of subjective preference (\u201cmoral compass,\u201d if you will), (2) widely disputed, and (3) only as strong as the goodwill that supports it. Therefore, while appealing to ethics to solve normative questions in AI gets us into a tunnel of unending discussion, human rights are the light that we need to follow to get out on the \u201cright\u201d side. Or so the argument goes\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a practitioner in the field of AI, I can say that purely relying on UDHR is not going to solve the ethical dilemma we have with AI ethics since I believe \u00a0the argument is an overestimation of the capabilities of UDHR. Ethics are severely underestimated and we may be more aligned than we think we are when it comes to a moral compass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A good example of highlighting this conundrum between UDHR and ethics is the classic case of utilising an AI system as a diagnostic tool within the healthcare industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are lists of potential positives and negatives that can be addressed; the positives being the accuracy and efficiency of diagnostic AI tools have a positive impact on the right to life, liberty, security, adequate standards of living, and education. The contrast being that data is required to construct these tools which has a negative impact as it infringes on the right to privacy. The solution could be developing methods through which these diagnostic tools could be created without violating privacy and this may be the obvious alternatives that several AI practitioners are taking, however what if the situation arises where we may not necessarily be able to respect privacy to its full extent and the patients who require the diagnostic tools are suffering\/dying right now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UDHR may not necessarily solve that problem but ethical reasoning such as the Kantian framework may be a start for example in the context of de-identified data that could be traced back to individuals only through sophisticated means and whether there would be a strict rule against it. And in theories of social justice, we would look at the effects of these decisions on different segments of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In essence, we have established that it is absolutely essential that we combine ethical reasoning in combination with human rights in order to establish a case by case understanding around AI ethics and Responsible AI, however having a loosely composed framework is not comforting enough to ensure that AI is used ethically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an attempt to rectify this lack of structure, several organisations such as the European union have proposed \u201cAI regulation.\u201d However, attempts towards such a framework have drawbacks since the bill assesses the scope of risk associated with various uses of AI and then subjects these technologies to obligations proportional to their proposed threats \u2013 thereby promoting companies to adopt AI technologies as long as operational risk is low which does not necessarily align with human rights risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The obvious gap with regulations is that AI systems are not obliged to respect fundamental freedoms similar to the rights constructed to protect against government intrusion. Although there have been attempts to rectify this utilising \u201cEuropeans Unions General Data Protection Regulation\u201d which allows users to control their personal data and ensures that companies respect those rights \u2013 the solution does not permit users to mobilise their human rights and there has been no education in terms of understanding the value of safeguarding their personal information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regulations that have been created try to address the balance between subjective interests of humans as well as those of the industry. They try to protect human rights while ensuring that the laws adopted don\u2019t impede technological progress. But this balancing act often results in merely illusory protection, without offering concrete safeguards to citizens\u2019 fundamental freedoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To achieve this, the solutions adopted must be adapted to the needs and interests of individuals, rather than assumptions of what those parameters might be. Any solution must also include citizen participation. A good example of how ethics and human rights can be balanced out to solve the AI ethics conundrum is the \u201chuman rights by design\u201d approach. The approach covers the following: \u201cA \u201chuman rights by design\u201d approach needs to be capable of addressing human rights issues with short-, medium-, and long-term implications. These might include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n