Actionable Principles for Artificial Intelligence Policy: Three Pathways

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new framework for creating actionable AI principles that are practical for government policy, emphasizing stakeholder involvement and implementation mechanisms, based on case study insights from European AI guidelines.

Contribution

It proposes a novel, structured approach to transform AI ethics principles into actionable policy guidelines through a prototype framework.

Findings

Framework includes landscape assessments, stakeholder participation, and operational mechanisms.

Case study from European AI guidelines informs the framework development.

The proposed approach enhances the practical implementation of AI ethics in policy.

Abstract

In the development of governmental policy for artificial intelligence (AI) that is informed by ethics, one avenue currently pursued is that of drawing on AI Ethics Principles. However, these AI Ethics Principles often fail to be actioned in governmental policy. This paper proposes a novel framework for the development of Actionable Principles for AI. The approach acknowledges the relevance of AI Ethics Principles and homes in on methodological elements to increase their practical implementability in policy processes. As a case study, elements are extracted from the development process of the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI of the European Commissions High Level Expert Group on AI. Subsequently, these elements are expanded on and evaluated in light of their ability to contribute to a prototype framework for the development of Actionable Principles for AI. The paper proposes the following three propositions for the formation of such a prototype framework: (1) preliminary landscape assessments; (2) multi-stakeholder participation and cross-sectoral feedback; and, (3) mechanisms to support implementation and operationalizability.