Asia’s AI Agenda: The ethics of AI

Globally, future outlooks for artificial intelligence (AI) swing between two extremes—excited anticipation about the positive impact AI will have on economies and societies, and deepening fear of its potential to disrupt livelihoods and do harm. In Asia, governments and civil society groups are concerned about defining regulatory frameworks to guard against the latter, and all ecosystem experts are grappling with how to steer AI toward the former, more socially advantageous directions. On balance, however, the Asia Pacific business leaders surveyed for this report have great optimism about AI’s positive effect on their businesses, societies, and individual well-being.

This report, the fourth in our “Asia’s AI agenda” series, combines an Asia Pacific wide executive survey with expert interviews from industry, government, and academia, and takes the pulse of public and private actors in the AI ethics debate in the region.

Here are the key findings of the report:

• AI will be a major growth driver for Asia Pacific in the coming decade.
• Biases within AI tools are potentially dangerous for Asia—but biases about AI’s use in Asia could be even more so.
• Asian governments are building institutional capacity and frameworks to increase AI governance—but have yet to develop regulations.
• Asia Pacific respondents are engaged in AI ethics discussions and see a constructive role for governments.
• AI-driven unemployment narratives are counterbalanced by the potential to enhance and augment human work.

Download the report to get detailed insights and executive opinions on the ethical challenges of AI and how these are being addressed in Asia Pacific.