Regulation of algorithms

In 2016, Joy Buolamwini founded Algorithmic Justice League after a personal experience with biased facial detection software in order to raise awareness of the social implications of artificial intelligence through art and research.[13]

In 2018, the Netherlands employed an algorithmic system SyRI (Systeem Risico Indicatie) to detect citizens perceived being high risk for committing welfare fraud, which quietly flagged thousands of people to investigators.[14] This caused a public protest. The district court of Hague shut down SyRI referencing Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).[15]

In 2020, algorithms assigning exam grades to students in the UK sparked open protest under the banner "Fuck the algorithm."[16] This protest was successful and the grades were taken back.[17]

In 2017 Elon Musk advocated regulation of algorithms in the context of the existential risk from artificial general intelligence.[18][19][20] 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 civilisation."[18]

In response, some politicians expressed skepticism about the wisdom of regulating a technology that is still in development.[21] 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 artificial intelligence is in its infancy and that it is too early to regulate the technology.[22] 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.[23] One suggestion has been for the development of a global governance board to regulate AI development.[24] In 2020, the European Union published its draft strategy paper for promoting and regulating AI.[25]

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.[5] The development of public sector strategies for management and regulation of AI has been increasingly deemed necessary at the local, national,[26] and international levels[25] and in a variety of fields, from public service management[27] to law enforcement,[25] the financial sector,[26] robotics,[28] the military,[29] and international law.[30][31]

In the United States, on January 7, 2019, following an Executive Order on 'Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence', the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy released a draft Guidance for Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Applications, which includes ten principles for United States agencies when deciding whether and how to regulate AI.[32][33] In response, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has released a position paper,[34] the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence has published an interim report,[35] and the Defense Innovation Board has issued recommendations on the ethical use of AI.[36]

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,[30] and leading to proposals for global regulation.[37] In the United States, steering on regulating security-related AI is provided by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.[38]