“Ethics of AI” field research

Coordination

Valérie Beaudouin et Julia Velkovska

Presentation

Since the mid-2010s, debates on artificial intelligence have entered the public arena with a vengeance. While some players are highlighting the performance of these new technologies, others are stressing the related risks, ranging from opacity and bias to existential threats to our species. The Introduction to this issue shows how AI ethics has emerged as a ‘response’ proposed by the artificial intelligence community itself, to guard against risks and guide regulation.

Compared to the abundant discourse on AI in the public sphere, empirical studies examining its performativity in context and the social practices associated with it are rare. This issue addresses this challenge by bringing together a first set of studies based on field research. The first section, dedicated to the analysis of controversies, explores on the one hand the circulation of debates on AI in France between the scientific, media and political arenas, and, on the other, a specialized debate in the United States on the notion of equity in predictive justice. Through several inquiries in the worlds of work, the second section brings together case studies on the ways in which AI ethics is mobilized in specific professional contexts: the design of a tool for anonymizing court decisions at France’s Cour de Cassation; the introduction of AI in radiology; and the ‘organizational reality’ of the principle of AI ‘explicability’ in various companies.

Editorial Board

Director: Patrice FLICHY [patrice.flichy@u-pem.fr]

Editorial secretary: Aurélie BUR [aurelie.bur@enpc.fr]

Editorial committee: Valérie BEAUDOUIN, Jean-Samuel BEUSCART, Dominique CARDON, Fabienne GREFFET, Christian LICOPPE, Inna LYUBAREVA, Alexandre MATHIEU-FRITZ, Sylvie OCTOBRE, Sylvain PARASIE, Dominique PASQUIER, Franck REBILLARD, Olivier VOIROL

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