Building on the EU’s unique strategy for Artificial Intelligence (AI): can an ethical foundation be successfully integrated into its design and deployment?

In this article, the Author investigates the ethical principles espoused by the European Union’s (EU) policies on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and discuss their effectiveness in providing an ethical foundation for the entire process of developing and deploying AI in Europe. To this end, the scope of the term “ethics” in the regulatory process is analysed, and the extent to which ambiguity about its meaning can contribute to inadequate policies, is considered. The Author also addresses the criticisms and suggestions that have been made regarding the use of certain concepts, such as ‘trustworthiness’ and ‘human-centric’, which are so often used in European AI guidelines. The aim of the article is to explore the ways in which ethical values have been applied and identify potential areas of improvement to further safeguard and advance the rule of law, human rights, and democracy in the EU. This quest proves to be relevant amidst the various challenges that arise from emerging technologies like AI, which are of an unknown magnitude to our contemporary democracies, constituting a complete paradigm shift. In exploring the issues set out here, the Author navigates some of the new developments that the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) introduces, as well as the pressing criticisms levelled at it in the context of the overarching theme of this article.