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From the “rush to ethics” to the “race for governance” in Artificial Intelligence

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Abstract

This paper engages with the emerging field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance wishing to contribute to the relevant literature from three angles grounded in international human rights law, Law and Technology, Science and Technology Studies (STS) and theories of technology. Focusing on the shift from ethics to governance, it offers a bird-eye overview of the developments in AI governance, focusing on the comparison between ethical principles and binding rules for the governance of AI, and critically reviewing the latest regulatory developments. Secondly, focusing on the role of human rights, it takes the argument that human rights offer a more robust and effective framework a step further, arguing for the necessity to extend human rights obligations to also directly apply to private actors in the context of AI governance. Finally, it offers insights for AI governance borrowing from the Internet Governance history and the broader technology governance field.

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Notes

  1. The terms AI and AI systems are used interchangeably, under the definition offered in Section 2.

  2. The term “human rights” is used here as a synonym to “fundamental rights” as this is the more common and familiar locution employed in international law. For the source of the “human rights gap” as a concept see Zalnieriute, M., & Milan, S. (2019). Internet Architecture and Human Rights: Beyond the Human Rights Gap. Policy and Internet, 11(1), 6–15.

  3. According to the UN there are 195 sovereign states in the world, 193 of which are members of the UN.

  4. See Maastricht Principle No. 6, as cited in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (n 35) 15.

  5. Codified in Codified in Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Jan. 27, 1980, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331.

  6. On the growing literature suggesting human rights as a source of principles for human rights see also (Latonero, 2018; Leslie et al., 2022; McGregor et al., 2019; Risse, 2018; Taddeo & Floridi, 2018).

  7. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights art. 2, Dec. 16, 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 171.

  8. For more details see for example Mueller, M. (2002). Ruling the Root: IG and the Taming of Cyberspace. MIT Press, Zittrain, J. L. (2008). The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It The Harvard community has made this article openly Please share how this access benefits you. Your story. 10.1086/261502.

  9. See for example RFC 8280, (Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), RFC 8280, by. N. Ten Oever and C, Cathy, Research into Human Rights Protocol Considerations, October 2017, available at https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8280.txt) and the human rights check lists developed by the.

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Correspondence to Vasiliki Koniakou.

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Koniakou, V. From the “rush to ethics” to the “race for governance” in Artificial Intelligence. Inf Syst Front 25, 71–102 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-022-10300-6

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