Ethical artificial intelligence: Could Switzerland take the lead?
Thanks to its unique features – a strong democracy, its position of neutrality, and world-class research – Switzerland is well positioned to play a leading role in shaping the future of AI that adheres to ethical standards. The Swiss government recognizes the importance of AI to move the country forward, and with that in mind, has been involved in discussions at the international level.
The European initiative – the Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing initiative PEPP-PT – advocated a centralized data approach that raised concern about its transparency and governance. However, it was derailed when a number of nations, including Switzerland, decided in favour of a decentralized and privacy-enhancing system, called DP-3T (Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing). The final straw for PEPP-PT was when Germany decided to exit as well.
"In Switzerland, the central government does not impose an overarching ethical vision for AI. It would be incompatible with our democratic traditions if the government prescribed this top-down," Daniel Egloff, Head of Innovation of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) told swissinfo.ch. Egloff added that absolute ethical principles are difficult to establish since they could change from one technological context to another. "An ethical vision for AI is emerging in consultations among national and international stakeholders, including the public, and the government is taking an active role in this debate," he added.
Pascal Kaufmann, neuroscientist and founder of the Mindfire Foundationexternal link for human-centric AI, ... In order to be ethical, I suggest to hurry up and create AI for the people rather than for autocratic governments or for large tech companies. Inventing ethical policies doesn't get us anywhere and will not help us create AI.''
Anna Jobin, a postdoc at the Health Ethics and Policy Lab at the ETH Zurich, doesn't see it the same way. Based on her research, she believes that ethical considerations should be part of the development of AI: "We cannot treat AI as purely technological and add some ethics at the end, but ethical and social aspects need to be included in the discussion from the beginning."
For Peter Seele, professor of Business Ethics at USI, the University of Italian-speaking Switzerland, the key to resolving these issues is to place business, ethics, and law on an equal footing.
If Switzerland were to take a lead role in defining ethical standards, its political system based on direct democracy and democratically controlled cooperatives could play a central role in laying the foundation for the democratization of AI and the personal data economy.
See the full story here: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/regulation_ethical-artificial-intelligence--could-switzerland-take-the-lead-/45754096