Regulation of artificial intelligence

In 2017 Elon Musk called for regulation of AI development.[6] According to NPR, the Tesla CEO was "clearly not thrilled" to be advocating for government scrutiny that could impact his own industry, but believed the risks of going completely without oversight are too high: "Normally the way regulations are set up is when a bunch of bad things happen, there's a public outcry, and after many years a regulatory agency is set up to regulate that industry. It takes forever. That, in the past, has been bad but not something which represented a fundamental risk to the existence of civilization."[6]

In response, some politicians expressed skepticism about the wisdom of regulating a technology that is still in development.[7] Responding both to Musk and to February 2017 proposals by European Union lawmakers to regulate AI and robotics, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has argued that AI is in its infancy and that it is too early to regulate the technology.[8] Instead of trying to regulate the technology itself, some scholars suggest to rather develop common norms including requirements for the testing and transparency of algorithms, possibly in combination with some form of warranty.[9]

Public policy considerations generally focus on the technical and economic implications and on trustworthy and human-centered AI systems.[10] AI law and regulations can be divided into three main topics, namely governance of autonomous intelligence systems, responsibility and accountability for the systems, and privacy and safety issues.[11] The development of public sector strategies for management and regulation of AI has been increasingly deemed necessary at the local, national,[12] and international levels[13] and in a variety of fields, from public service management[14] and accountability[15] to law enforcement,[13] the financial sector,[12] robotics,[16] the military[17] and national security,[18] and international law.[19][20]

The development of a global governance board to regulate AI development was suggested at least as early as 2017.[21] In December 2018, Canada and France announced plans for a G7-backed International Panel on Artificial Intelligence, modeled on the International Panel on Climate Change, to study the global effects of AI on people and economies and to steer AI development.[22] In 2019 the Panel was renamed the Global Partnership on AI, but it is yet to be endorsed by the United States.[23][24] The OECD Recommendations on AI[25] were adopted in May 2019, and the G20 AI Principles in June 2019.[24][26][27] In September 2019 the World Economic Forum issued ten 'AI Government Procurement Guidelines'.[28] In February 2020, the European Union published its draft strategy paper for promoting and regulating AI.[13] At the United Nations, several entities have begun to promote and discuss aspects of AI regulation and policy, including the UNICRI Centre for AI and Robotics.[18]

Timeline of strategies, action plans and policy papers setting defining national, regional and international approaches to AI

The regulatory and policy landscape for AI is an emerging issue in jurisdictions globally, including in the European Union.[2] Since early 2016, many national, regional and international authorities have begun adopting strategies, actions plans and policy papers on AI.[29][1] These documents cover a wide range of topics such as regulation and governance, as well as industrial strategy, research, talent and infrastructure.[10][30]

Legal questions related to lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), in particular compliance with the laws of armed conflict, have been under discussion at the United Nations since 2013, within the context of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.[47] Notably, informal meetings of experts took place in 2014, 2015 and 2016 and a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) was appointed to further deliberate on the issue in 2016. A set of guiding principles on LAWS affirmed by the GGE on LAWS were adopted in 2018.[48]

In 2016, China published a position paper questioning the adequacy of existing international law to address the eventuality of fully autonomous weapons, becoming the first permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to broach the issue,[19] and leading to proposals for global regulation.[49] The possibility of a moratorium or preemptive ban of the development and use of LAWS has also been raised on several occasions by other national delegations to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and is strongly advocated for by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots - a coalition of non-governmental organizations.[50]

Regulation of AI can be seen as positive social means to manage the AI control problem, i.e., the need to insure long-term beneficial AI, with other social responses such as doing nothing or banning being seen as impractical, and approaches such as enhancing human capabilities through transhumanism approaches such as brain-computer interfaces being seen as potentially complementary.[51][52] Regulation of research into artificial general intelligence (AGI) focuses on the role of review boards, from university or corporation to international levels, and on encouraging research into safe AI,[52] together with the possibility of differential intellectual progress (prioritizing risk-reducing strategies over risk-taking strategies in AI development) or conducting international mass surveillance to perform AGI arms control.[51] For instance, the 'AGI Nanny' is a proposed strategy, potentially under the control of humanity, for preventing the creation of a dangerous superintelligence as well as addressing other major threats to human well-being, such as subversion of the global financial system, until a superintelligence can be safely created. It entails the creation of a smarter-than-human, but not superintelligent, artificial general intelligence system connected to a large surveillance network, with the goal of monitoring humanity and protecting it from danger."[51] Regulation of conscious, ethically aware AGIs focuses on integrating them with existing human society and can be divided into considerations of their legal standing and of their moral rights.[51]

• Artificial intelligence
• Artificial intelligence arms race
• Artificial intelligence control problem
• Artificial intelligence in government
• Ethics of artificial intelligence
• Government by algorithm
• Regulation of algorithms