Artificial intelligence

The legal and ethical implications

A decision to adopt AI can raise fundamental ethical and moral issues for society. These complex issues are of vital importance to our future, but they are not typically the domain of lawyers.

Here we focus on the more granular ethical and related legal risks that need to be managed by a business developing or using AI in whatever industry sector it occupies. As legal responsibility is a subset of moral (or ethical) responsibility, for AI to gain acceptance and be trusted in a given sector, a business will need to take into account the ethical considerations and the legal factors that flow from them.

Executive summary

A decision to adopt AI can raise fundamental and moral issues for society. These are complex and vital issues that are not typically the domain of lawyers.

What is AI?

AI is a field of computer science that includes machine learning, natural language processing, speech processing, expert systems, robotics, and machine vision.

Artificial intelligence and ethics

AI will need to meet certain minimum ethical standards to achieve sufficient end user uptake, varying according to the type of AI and sector of deployment.

What are the key legal risks?

Courts in a number of countries have already had to address a range of legal questions in relation to the automatic nature of machines and systems.

Ethics risk toolkit

The key question businesses need to consider is whether deploying AI will result in a shift of ethical and legal responsibility within their supply chain

Sector impact

The potential of AI is driving rapid take-up across a range of sectors. What are some of the likely use cases across sectors?

Checklist

What key legal questions should in-house counsel be asking in relation to AI?

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