The ethics of AI development in public policy

The number of ethical guidelines, frameworks and principles on AI just keeps growing and growing. International organisations, national regulators, parliamentary committees, even the corporate sector, are overflowing with documents proclaiming the need for AI to be ethical. Of course, AI technologies (AITs) cannot themselves be ethical. AITs are, whatever their sophistication, speed and processing power, still just technologies. So, AI ethics, at least for public policy, really refers to the ethics of AI development and use by humans, in specific social, institutional and political situations.