The use of artificial intelligence (AI) brings a wide range of benefits to society. But unless properly identified and addressed, a range of legal, ethical and societal risks are likely to damage trust in these developing technologies.
The purpose of the Law, Ethics & Society working group is to anticipate, assess and propose ways to address the legal, ethical and societal challenges of AI. The group will provide leadership on the various impacts of AI and how those should be managed for the benefit of society, including considering appropriate development and deployment of AI technologies, changing our responses (including by regulation where appropriate), or a combination of both.
The working group has a range of expertise that it aims to make available to individuals, business and policy-makers. The working group includes technologists, lawyers, ethicists, academics, business leaders and government representatives. It maintains links with international policy bodies, particularly the Partnership on AI.
The group’s current focus is refining its broad potential scope and assessing where it can have the most impact. Specific tasks include establishing high-level AI ethical principles for New Zealand, which will be applied to case studies through various frameworks with a view to amending these for New Zealand’s specific needs. Recommendations and suggestions from other AI Forum working groups and members of the public are welcome.
Working Group Leadership:
Frith Tweedie, EY Law and Sean Welsh, University of Canterbury