Digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) have found their
way into nearly every corner of contemporary life, both public and
private. In considering the broader social implications of these de-
velopments from an ethical standpoint, it is not enough to under-
stand the technologies involved. The ways in which people interact
with them must also be taken into account, whether they use them
directly or are impacted by their use. One key question considers the
implications of delegating tasks previously reserved for humans to
machines: Will the use of AI increase or diminish human authorship
and options for action?
2) In pursuing this question, the German Ethics Council continues to
explore a set of topics it has previously addressed in its Opinions “Big
Data and Health – Data Sovereignty as the Shaping of Informational
Freedom” (2017) and “Robotics for Good Care” (2020). The present
66INTRODUCTION
Opinion also takes up a request from the President of the German
Bundestag in October 2020 to draft a multidisciplinary treatise on the
ethical issues posed by human–machine relations.
3) The Opinion is divided into three sections. The first addresses the
underlying technical and philosophical aspects of the topic. The second
section follows with concrete examples, analysing the ethics of AI as
it appears in four select fields: medicine, education in schools, public
communication and opinion formation, and public administration. The
final section identifies ten overarching topics relevant to each of these
four fields, including general recommendations.
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Digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) have found their
way into nearly every corner of contemporary life, both public and
private. In considering the broader social implications of these de-
velopments from an ethical standpoint, it is not enough to under-
stand the technologies involved. The ways in which people interact
with them must also be taken into account, whether they use them
directly or are impacted by their use. One key question considers the
implications of de...
»