This paper examines how the governance in AI policy documents have been framed as way to resolve public controversies surrounding AI. It draws on the studies of governance of emerging technologies, the concept of policy framing, and analysis of 49 recent policy documents dedicated to AI which have been prepared in the context of technological hype expecting fast advances of AI that will fundamentally change economy and society. The hype about AI is accompanied by major public controversy about positive and negative effects of AI. Against the backdrop of this policy controversy, governance emerges as one of the frames that diagnoses the problems and offers prescriptions. Accordingly, the current governance characterized by oligopoly of a small number of large companies is indicated as one of the reasons for problems such as lack of consideration of societal needs and concerns. To address these problems, governance frame in AI policy documents assigns more active and collaborative roles to the state and society. Amid public controversies, the state is assigned the roles of promoting and facilitating AI development while at the same time being a guarantor of risk mitigation and enabler of societal engagement. High expectations are assigned to public engagement with multiple publics as a way to increase diversity, representation and equality in AI development and use. While this governance frame might have a normative appeal, it is not specific about addressing some well-known challenges of the proposed governance mode such as risks of capture by vested interests or difficulties to achieve consensus.

The extensive disruption to and digital transformation of travel administration across borders largely due to COVID-19 mean that digital vaccine passports are being developed to resume international travel and kick-start the global economy. Currently, a wide range of actors are using a variety of different approaches and technologies to develop such a system. This paper considers the techno-ethical issues raised by the digital nature of vaccine passports and the application of leading-edge technologies such as blockchain in developing and deploying them. We briefly analyse four of the most advanced systems – IBM’s Digital Health Passport “Common Pass,” the International Air Transport Association’s Travel Pass, the Linux Foundation Public Health’s COVID-19 Credentials Initiative and the Vaccination Credential Initiative (Microsoft and Oracle) – and then consider the approach being taken for the EU Digital COVID Certificate. Each of these raises a range of issues, particularly relating to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the need for standards and due diligence in the application of innovative technologies (eg blockchain) that will directly challenge policymakers when attempting to regulate within the network of networks.

Drawing on more than eight years working to implement Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the Human Brain Project, a large EU-funded research project that brings together neuroscience, computing, social sciences, and the humanities, and one of the largest investments in RRI in one project, this article offers insights on RRI and explores its possible future. We focus on the question of how RRI can have long-lasting impact and persist beyond the time horizon of funded projects. For this purpose, we suggest the concept of 'responsibility by design' which is intended to encapsulate the idea of embedding RRI in research and innovation in a way that makes it part of the fabric of the resulting outcomes, in our case, a distributed European Research Infrastructure.

No abstract

The recent exponential rate of AI development has led to a proliferation of AI national policies and strategies as global power blocs have sought to consolidate positions of strategic dominance. These policies have sought to promote the benefits and mitigate the risks of AI—and address ever more serious ethical concerns about these technologies. This raises the question of how countries less influential in the sphere of AI might seek to address such ethical issues themselves, and whether lessons can be learned from existing policies in addressing issues of ethics and human rights. From a consideration of the current AI ethics discourse and existing AI policies, the chapter goes on to explore how ethical concerns are addressed in the North African AI strategies and which gaps and opportunities in terms of coverage of ethical issues arise from the current state of these policies. We suggest that ethical issues should be addressed clearly in policy at the earliest possible stage to ensure that ethical standards are internally produced in line with social and cultural values, rather than being de facto applied by external actors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about the first real opportunity to test the efficacy of the Responsible Research and Innovation framework or RRI in a global health crisis. This is in view of the bold new approaches to health research and innovation that the pandemic has paved the way for. One such approach is the digital contact tracing application (CTA). Although contact tracing has been a fundamental part of infectious disease control for decades, this is the first time this technique has been used in mobile applications. Based on a Multivocal Literature Review, the development of CTAs in four countries – France, Germany, Spain, and the UK – was assessed to understand what dimensions of RRI can be identified in the governments’ response to COVID-19. This chapter shows that although from 2011, RRI has been promoted as a governance approach for increasing societal desirability of the processes and products of science and technology, very little is known about how the framework may be applied in a health crisis. Notwithstanding that RRI was not explicitly referenced during the development of CTAs in France, the UK, Spain, and Germany, the analysis has identified some interesting linkage to this framework. It shows that while no RRI approach was explicitly embraced by these governments, some key components were present – even though inadequately. It also indicates that, while it is challenging to apply RRI in crises, there is value in using it as an analytical tool for techno-social responses in situations, like those created by the COVID-19 health crisis.

Iain M. Banks has been at the forefront of the space opera science fiction scene since the publication of the first culture novel, Consider Phlebas, in 1987. Upon Banks' death in 2013, the culture series became a complete body of work. Whilst some criticism has focused on the social and political implications of the culture universe, little has engaged with the philosophical concepts that underpin it in relation to the current debate regarding our posthuman future. This paper seeks to show how Banks problematises the relationship between the human and posthuman through an exploration of the representation of the posthuman body. Furthermore, it also seeks to address the implications of current concepts of what it means to be human by exploring the relationship between the posthuman and form of Artificial Intelligence that Banks presents. to illustrate these arguments, three culture texts will be discussed: The Player of Games (1988) Excession (1996, and "The State of the Art" (1989). (1988( ), Excession (1996 in 'The State of the Art' (1989).

Ethical and social concerns are a key obstacle to the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the life sciences and beyond. The discussion of these issues has intensified in recent years and led to a number of approaches, tools and initiatives. Key amongst them is the idea of ex-ante impact assessments that aim to identify issues at the early stages of development. One prominent example of such ex-ante impact assessment is the European Union's (EU) Assessment list for Trustworthy AI (ALTAI). This article uses the findings of a large-scale application of the ALTAI to a large neuro-informatics project as an exemplar to demonstrate the effectiveness and limitations of the ALTAI in practice. The article shows that ex-ante impact assessment has the potential to help identify and address ethical and social issues. However, they need to be understood as part of a broader socio-technical ecosystem of AI. For ALTAI and related approaches to be useful in bio-medical research, they should be interpreted from a systems theory perspective which allows for their integration into the rich set of tools, legislation and approaches. The paper argues that ex-ante impact assessments have the best chance of being successful if seen applied in conjunction with other approaches in the context of the overall AI ecosystem.