Formalizing ethical principles within AI systems: experts’ opinions on why (not) and how to do it

Abstract AI systems are increasingly put into contexts where computed decisions must be guided by ethical considerations. To develop ethically grounded algorithms and technologies, scholars have suggested computational ethics as an essential frontier, which aims to translate ethical principles into computer code. However, computational ethics has received little attention in academic literature so far, with existing work mainly focusing on its technical implementation, while many open questions concerning its (societal and ethical) implications still need to be resolved. Therefore, in this study, we interviewed 12 experts from philosophy, AI and cognitive sciences to shed light on computational ethics beyond a technical perspective. Findings suggest that indicated supporting and opposing arguments can be clustered into pragmatic/practical, societal and epistemic reasons, all of which need to be contemplated when engaging in computational ethics and developing resulting artificial moral agents. Furthermore, the mentioned recommendations for companies’ technological design and development, for industry’s governance measures and academia’s research endeavors are recapitulated and summarized in a holistic framework that aims to facilitate a reflected implementation of ‘ethics in and by design’ in the future.