21 - AI, Ethics, and Law

Summary

AI has profound ethical implications and poses grave threats to humanity, whereas a theoretical framework for determining what it can and cannot do or for what it should and should not do, has yet to be developed. That gap is understandable as applying ethics and law to AI is not easy and doing so raises deep philosophical problems. The result is a formidable strategic challenge. On one hand, we may make fundamental errors if we try to sidestep foundational issues to arrive at pragmatic solutions. On the other hand, we may get bogged down trying to solve those foundational issues. This chapter attempts to steer a middle course - addressing the deep problems while avoiding gratuitous philosophical commitments. In other words, the chapter attempts to confront philosophical issues to the extent - but only to the extent - necessary to chart a way forward. Human beings may have an ongoing role to play in supervising AI from ethical and legal perspectives, despite impressive technological advances. The chapter identifies key challenges for regulating AI and for AI as a legal regulator, sketching a general framework for understanding the relationship between AI, consciousness, ethics, and law.