Ethically Aligned Design of Autonomous Systems : Industry Viewpoint and an Empirical Study

Abstract

Progress in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been accelerating rapidly in the past two decades. Various autonomous systems from purely digital ones to autonomous vehicles are being developed and deployed out on the field. As these systems exert a growing impact on society, ethics in relation to artificial intelligence and autonomous systems have recently seen growing attention among academia. However, the current literature on the topic has focused largely on theoretical contributions, and there is a gap between research and practice in the area. Though this gap has been acknowledged in existing studies, the exact issues resulting in this gap remain blurred. In order to better understand the gap in the area, we conduct a multiple case study of five case companies. Based on the data, we highlight a number of issues in the area in terms of implementing AI ethics in practice. We then propose ways to tackle this gap.