Regulating scientific and technological uncertainty: The precautionary principle in the context of human genomics and AI

Abstract

Considered in isolation, the ethical and societal challenges posed by genomics and artificial intelligence (AI) are profound and include issues relating to autonomy, privacy, equality, bias, discrimination, and the abuse of power, amongst others. When these two technologies are combined, the ethical, legal and societal issues increase substantially, become much more complex, and can be scaled enormously, which increases the impact. Adding to these complexities, both genomics and AI-enabled technologies are rife with scientific and technological uncertainties, which makes the regulation of these technologies not only challenging in itself, but also creates legal uncertainties. In science, the precautionary principle has been used globally to govern uncertainty, with the specific aim to prevent irreversible harm to human beings. The regulation of uncertainties in AI-enabled technologies is based on risk as set out in the AI Regulation that was recently proposed by the European Commission. However, when genomics and artificial intelligence are combined, not only do uncertainties double, but the current regulation of such uncertainties towards the safe use thereof for humans seems contradictory, considering the different approaches followed by science and technology in this regard. In this article, I explore the regulation of both scientific and technological uncertainties and argue that the application of the precautionary principle in the context of human genomics and AI seems to be the most effective way to regulate the uncertainties brought about by the combination of these two technologies.

Inclusion Ethics in AI: Use Cases in African Fashion

“…For proponents of precaution including Vince Madai (Allahabadi et al 2022), innovation and AI application should be slowed to limit the number and severity of these kinds of imbalances. Botes (2023) articulates the stance this way: "[Precaution] emphasizes caution, pausing, and review before leaping into new innovations." As applied to AI fashion technology, precaution would have delayed work everywhere in the world once it became clear that optimizing for some garments (mainly belonging to Western cultures) was effectively leaving others out.…”

Managing artificial intelligence

“…One cannot even look at the news without finding something about AI: duplication of voices (even John Lennon's years after his death), use of AI in art and music creation, facial recognition, and others. This new field is readily used in the management of big data in many arenas but is filled with risks and uncertainty (Botes 2023). If the world population declines in number (https://scientificamerican.com/article/population%E2%80%90decline%E2%80%90will%E2%80%90change%E2%80%90the%E2%80%90world%E2%80%90for%E2%80%90the%E2%80%90better/, accessed 19 Jun 2023), there will be even more demand for AI to replace needed skills once provided by humans.…”