Public Value Principles for Secure and Trusted AI

The objective of this paper is to establish the fundamental public value principles that should govern safe and trusted artificial intelligence (AI). Public value is a dynamic concept that encompasses several dimensions. AI itself has evolved quite rapidly in the last few years, especially with the swift escalation of Generative AI. Governments around the world are grappling with how to govern AI, just as technologists ring alarm bells about the future consequences of AI. Our paper extends the debate on AI governance that is focused on ethical values of beneficence to that of economic values of public good. Viewed as a public good, AI use is beyond the control of the creators. Towards this end, the paper examined AI policies in the United States and Europe. We postulate three principles from a public values perspective: (i) ensuring security and privacy of each individual (or entity); (ii) ensuring trust in AI systems is verifiable; and (iii) ensuring fair and balanced AI protocols, wherein the underlying components of data and algorithms are contestable and open to public debate.