Ethics of Autonomy and Care in AI Decision-Making

Ethics of Autonomy and Care is AI Decision-Making is part of the DesCartes Programme by CNRS@CREATE. DesCartes: Intelligent Modelling for Decision-Making in Critical Urban Systems is a 5-year programme that tightly integrates computer science and mathematics (AI techniques), engineering (critical systems), humanities and social sciences (ethics and societal impact) to enable real-time decision in a people-centric smart city. The project on Ethics of Autonomy and Care in Decision-Making will develop a modern provisional ethics based on the ethics of autonomy and care that uses the reflective equilibrium approach to guide and recalibrate decisions surrounding the development of AI-innovations where there is currently uncertain knowledge about the nature of AI and its impact. It will approach AI-innovations by taking reflexive considerations of both the innovation process and its possible impact, as well as socio-cultural-political contexts to re-balance the ethical framework.

Ethics of Autonomy and Care in AI Decision-Making is novel in a few ways and will achieve the following aims.

Provide philosophical insights to the ethical terms used to establish norms that are grounded on human values in the upstream decision making of the innovation process besides the ethical considerations when making decisions related to its impacts.
Anchor the conceptual analysis on the ethics of autonomy and care (which are fundamental to the notion of responsibility) to allow for a broadened analysis of responsibility towards individuals and others (including future generations), AI robots, animals and the environment.
Establish a provisional ethics that uses the reflective equilibrium approach to arrive at a balanced ethical position that is responsive to future changes in AI development.
Establish a provisional ethics that is able to carry out cross-cultural analysis of ethical relationships and impacts between societies and AI developments.
Establish a provisional ethics that is responsive to future changes in AI innovation and cultural differences.