Ethics and the Pursuit of Artificial Intelligence

So many businesses and governments are scurrying to get into the artificial intelligence race that many appear to be losing sight of some important things that should matter along the way – such as legality, good governance, and ethics. In the AI arena the stakes are extremely high and it is quickly becoming a free-for-all from data acquisition to the stealing of corporate and state secrets. The "rules of the road" are either being addressed along the way or not at all, since the legal regime governing who can do what to whom, and how, is either wholly inadequate or simply does not exist. As is the case in the cyber world, the law is well behind the curve. Ethical questions abound with AI systems, raising questions about how machines recognize and process values and ethical paradigms.