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Don’t we have to balance the economic benefits of AI innovation against the harms?
Defining economic benefits
It has been stated that Europe’s current and future sustainable economic growth and societal wellbeing increasingly draws on “value created by data”.
Recognising harms
It has been well recognised by many countries that AI applications have the potential to cause harm. In the light of this, various proposals are under discussion, such as a bill of digital rights in the USA or the EU’s proposed regulation to ensure “trustworthy’ AI that respects “European Values and human rights”. Yet these rights and values are not well defined, whereas the economic value of AI is easily quantified.
Historically, both the US and Europe understood the dignity and “unalienable rights” referenced in the US Declaration of Independence and the UN’s Human Rights charter, to be conferred by a creator God.
Human dignity trumps economics
Value, in terms of humanity flourishing, cannot be created by data, but of course that is what AI is all about. If damage to humanity by AI is weighed in the balance of economic gain by AI, then it is clear that human dignity, life values, human rights and so forth will all be fitted to conform to what is most important—Europe’s, or other Western economies. This will reduce all the good words and intentions behind a bill or rights or trustworthy AI to a relativistic shape.
If we believe that humanity has a dignity that is conferred upon it along with “rights”, implicit in the US Declaration of Independence, 1776 and the 1948 United Nations universal Declaration of Human Rights, then preventing harms to the dignity and rights of humankind must trump economic benefits. Fundamental to this position is clarity about what it means to be a human being and the harms that AI can do to our personhood (see FAQ – How do some applications of AI harm humanity).