Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Architecture and urban design, German University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
2
architecture and urban design, faculty of engineering, Ain Shams University
Abstract
AI ethics is a relatively nascent field whereby multiple guidelines, reports, statements, and initiatives on AI ethics have been developed. Despite the increased production on AI ethics in recent years, there is no systematic tracking in the literature that provides an in-depth study of the AI ethical production environment. Some of the previous research presents the geographic location and the date of the documents, however, necessary information about the documents of AI ethics remain missing such as their types, who issues them, and the covered and missing sectors. As a result, we analyze a dataset of 100 documents on AI ethics issued by various organizations between 2015 and 2022. The aim of this analysis is to provide a comprehensive view of the current AI ethical landscape. We use content analysis to highlight five key elements of the dataset: the time period for issuing (when), the type of documents created on AI ethics (how), the type of issuer (who), the geographic distribution (where), and the sectors they cover (what).
The findings show 2015 as the first year of publishing documents on AI ethics and 2018 as the peak year of publishing documents on AI ethics. Majority of documents are sets of guiding principles, followed by reports and the remaining document types. Moreover the majority of documents on AI ethics are developed by private entities followed by academia and governmental entities. In Addition, we notice a gap that the majority of the documents on AI ethics were developed by entities and organizations in the Global North. Lastly, most AI ethics documents are generic and do not focus on a particular sector. Nonetheless, a few documents have been created to address specific sectors such as health, mobility/automated transportation, and education. Nevertheless, documents on AI ethics remain non-binding guidelines raising several questions about the applicability of AI ethics in reality.
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