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Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights: A Business Ethical Assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2020

Alexander KRIEBITZ Open the ORCID record for Alexander KRIEBITZ [Opens in a new window]  and
Christoph LÜTGE
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Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has evolved as a disruptive technology, impacting a wide range of human rights-related issues ranging from discrimination to supply chain due diligence. Given the increasing human rights obligations of companies and the intensifying discourse on AI and human rights, we shed light on the responsibilities of corporate actors in terms of human rights standards in the context of developing and using AI. What implications do human rights obligations have for companies developing and using AI? In our article, we discuss firstly whether AI inherently conflicts with human rights and human autonomy. Next, we discuss how AI might be linked to the beneficence criterion of AI ethics and how AI might be applied in human rights-related areas. Finally, we elaborate on individual aspects of what it means to conform to human rights, addressing AI-specific problem areas.

Keywords

artificial intelligencecorporate ethicsdata privacydigitizationhuman rights
Type
Scholarly Articles
Information
Business and Human Rights Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 84 - 104
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

*

Research Associate at the Chair of Business Ethics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany. Alexander Kriebitz declares no conflict of interest.

**

Chair Holder and Full Professor at the Chair of Business Ethics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany. As Professor at Technical University of Munich and as director of the Institute of Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, Christoph Lütge received project funding from Facebook Inc., Fujitsu K.K. and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd related to research on artificial intelligence and ethics.

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43 A/RES/70/1.

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81 Floridi et al, note 4.

82 Compare Asimov’s Law: ‘A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm’.

83 Ibid.

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91 Ibid; Zenz, note 88.

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