Ethical Statistical Practice and Ethical AI

TL;DR

This paper discusses the importance of ethical principles in AI and statistics, emphasizing legal and ethical standards to guide responsible AI development and use.

Contribution

It analyzes existing human rights and ethical standards to support the operationalization of ethical AI practices in statistics.

Findings

Supports ethical AI through established human rights laws.

Provides guidance for integrating ethics into statistical AI practices.

Highlights the role of ethical standards in responsible AI development.

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a field that utilizes computing and often, data and statistics, intensively together to solve problems or make predictions. AI has been evolving with literally unbelievable speed over the past few years, and this has led to an increase in social, cultural, industrial, scientific, and governmental concerns about the ethical development and use of AI systems worldwide. The ASA has issued a statement on ethical statistical practice and AI (ASA, 2024), which echoes similar statements from other groups. Here we discuss the support for ethical statistical practice and ethical AI that has been established in long-standing human rights law and ethical practice standards for computing and statistics. There are multiple sources of support for ethical statistical practice and ethical AI deriving from these source documents, which are critical for strengthening the operationalization of the "Statement on Ethical AI for Statistics Practitioners". These resources are explicated for interested readers to utilize to guide their development and use of AI in, and through, their statistical practice.