Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Public Administration

Public Administration has been considered the area where the opportunities and challenges of Artificial Intelligence will constitute a priority on the agenda and with repercussions felt by those administered, with particular emphasis on organizations such as the European Union (EU) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The issue of implementing and using AI in Public Administration must be seen from a double perspective. Firstly, the Public Administration is assigned regulatory functions and is responsible for dictating rules within the scope of the functioning of economic activity and authorizing the introduction of new products and services onto the market depending on their respective characteristics. On the other hand, it is also seen as a potential “first buyer”; just think about the various areas it covers and the multiplicity of entities and organisms that gravitate in its orbit. The EU has placed greater emphasis on the regulatory role of Public Administration, with the role of direct beneficiary of AI systems and the role of “first buyer” attributed to it being somewhat neglected.

In Public Administration procedures, AI systems are considered as tools that can lead to enormous benefits in terms of efficiency in the process of formulating public policies, as well as in the provision of services to those administered, allowing greater efficiency and higher levels of satisfaction and confidence in public service.

From this perspective, Public Administration can also be seen in its distinctive aspects from the private sector, in the pursuit of the public interest that diverges from the profit that prevails over private entities, namely in the study and implementation of AI systems that do not only aim at economic benefits. The public interest can justify the search for technologies that do not aim at profit, in favor of progress that presents benefits and improvements in the human development index of those administered.

Still in the 19th century, in 1866, Fustel de Coulanges considered the replacement of religious beliefs, as a principle of government, with the “belief” in the public interest that was at the origin of the construction of modern societies. Many authors defend the insufficiency of a stricto sensu legal approach to the public interest, advocating the need for broader approaches that encompass human development.

Public Administration has a determining role in the implementation of the public interest, some authors define it as the “universal label” that involves public policies and their various implementation programs. The public interest is generally considered a good by the community. However, it can either be used to promote public policies that represent an effective common good, or to obscure others whose community acceptance is not so evident. For example, Walter Lippmann, in 1955, said: “it may be assumed that the public interest is what men would choose if they saw clearly, thought rationally, and acted disinterestedly and benevolently.” (our translation).

Within the scope of public interest considerations, the Human Development Index (IDR) which has been established since 1990 in the Human Development Report (1990) issued by the United Nations Development Program, which seeks to contribute to to correct distortions in the model proposed by the HDI, regarding the role of poverty and inequalities in development.

In the 2010 United Nations Report, human development can provide the possibility of longer, healthier and more creative lives by achieving goals with commitments that shape development with a view to equality and sustainability of the planet we share. Economist Amartya Sen, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998, who influenced the first United Nations document on human development in his studies on ethics and economics, argues that the criterion of utility should be replaced by the notion of substantive freedoms, considering the autonomy of free choice that allows real, lived freedoms, which are often called “capabilities”: freedoms of opportunities and not just theoretical rights and with real conditions of a life that makes sense to value.

In the ethics of AI, we do not find reflections that encompass the combination of public interest that the Public Administration and its entities and bodies must pursue, from a perspective of human development recommended by the United Nations. In fact, references to poverty and inequalities, which according to some authors, AI is already accentuating and which could become more accentuated in the future, although these themes are still little explored in the context of AI ethics.

Furthermore, inequality, including in terms of advanced technology, is increasing with the gap between high and low human development countries, for example in terms of digital technology such as mobile telephony and broadband. It is this digital exclusion that is also important to reflect on, not neglecting the internal digital exclusion of less deprived societies, as well as the importance of digital literacy, providing awareness of the existence of algorithms that, without human intervention, decide aspects of community life.

The basis of this problem, although not new, presents current contours, which deserve investigation in order to search for paths and strategies. On the one hand, they can alter the inequalities potentially caused by technologies, but they can also work in the opposite direction, contributing to the reduction of inequalities reflected ancestrally in society.

Philosophy, namely ethics, and other social sciences, from a multidisciplinary perspective, play, in this context, a fundamental role contributing to reflections, which should not only influence public policies for a fairer distribution of income, but also serve to evaluate the implications of AI, namely on the meaning of life of the new “useless”, excluded from the job market due to automation, and also on the very dignity that work gives to Man and/or if we want a society similar to the dystopia that Huxley described in “Brave New World” in which a chemical substance “soma” resolved all people’s anxieties and frustrations.

Philosophy and, in particular, ethics, also seeking to meet the public interest, can also contribute to defining the balance that technologies can offer in the approach and study of values ​​with the capacity to influence public policies in the implementation of AI in raising awareness, preventing and combating climate change, but also questioning the Western lifestyle in which social status is also endorsed by consumerism that confers status and acceptance in the group or class to which people belong or aspire to belong.

Although it is not clear that there is unanimity that defends the eradication of inequalities, some authors understand that the existence of inequalities is essential for the functioning of the economy, considering that the public interest can also be invoked in the defense of antagonistic interests, depending on the protagonists of public policies. Even so, we understand that the public interest as defined above by Lippmann, seeking to achieve the objectives of the Human Development index, must be combined within the scope of AI ethics in Public Administration.

The contribution of A Theory of Justice advocated by neo-contractualist John Rawls seems to need to be considered on this topic. Rawls defended an initial position in which members of the community would be covered with the “veil of ignorance”, therefore not having any knowledge as to the place they would occupy in society, that is, whether they would benefit or be exploited/discriminated against. The author argues that these would be the ideal conditions for consensually choosing the principles of justice, on which social cooperation and political organization are based, and which will guide the attribution of basic rights and duties, as well as the social division of benefits. It seems to us that this theory could make an important contribution to the combination that AI ethics should make with the public interest, seeking to achieve proposals that promote ethical AI, reinforced with the public interest that should guide public policies and the decisions of leaders of Public Administration.

The author has a Master’s degree in Ethics in Artificial Intelligence / Public Administration, from the University of Lisbon.