AI is evolving rapidly. Can ethics keep up?

• AI’s potential for facial recognition software could potentially scrape billions of images without permission, recognize faces, and identify individuals.

• Large AI tools currently refrain from ethical reasons, but this may change as smaller, decentralized AIs emerge.

• AI can be used for surveillance, deepfake generation, and spreading disinformation, all areas with ethical concerns.

• AI can automate bias, especially in hiring, by tweaking parameters.

• The human need to know whether one is interacting with a human or a machine is often concealed by companies.

• The need for an industry standard to govern AI practices is raised, but the pace of ethics is uncertain.

• Ethics is a broad, ambiguous set of rules based on what we know, and the future presents unfamiliar scenarios.

• Legality, a formalized version of ethics, implies regulation, which may invite legal oversight.

• The Hindu Huddle session titled ‘AI for all? The dream of a democratised and ethical technology’ will discuss these questions.