One disruptive technology that is changing the way the world operates is Artificial Intelligence (AI). As the science and advancement of AI develops, smart technologies are increasingly being deployed and will have profound ethical, psychological, social, economic, and legal consequences for human society and our planet. Artificial autonomous agents are simply the next stage in the development of technology.
Autonomous agents perceive, decide, and act on their own. In summary, autonomous agents behave as humans. This is a radical, qualitative change in our technology and in our image of technology. This raises concerns ofthe fact that AI agents could in the future, take unwanted actions that result in dire consequences.
Due to the constant development and wide deployment of AI technology (in areas such as healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, agriculture, Smart Cities amongst others) in the ICT sector, AI continuously undergoes change cycles that result in new emerging ethical, social and legal issues.
This has already initiated the transformation of our societies, and the emergence of ethical, legal and social challenges leading to a collective debate on the potential positive and negative impact of AI, and if we can indeed allow these systems to occupy human roles.
Hence, this paper, sponsored by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), aims to dissect AI, its impact on society and the ethical considerations concerning its wide deployment by focusing on the following research questions:
- How does AI impact the society?
- What are the ethical considerations related to AI?
- Can AI be regulated? If so, how?
Download: pdf Ethical and Societal Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) (596 KB)