IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021 - 81

Explaining the Principles
to Practices Gap in AI
Daniel Schiff
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta,
GA 30332 USA
Bogdana Rakova
Happiness Alliance, Seattle, WA 98103 USA
Aladdin Ayesh
De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, U.K.
 As ArtificiAl intelligence (AI) permeates
across social and economic life, its ethical and
governance implications have come to the forefront.
Active debates surround AI's role in labor
displacement, autonomous vehicles, military, misinformation,
healthcare, education, and more. As
societies collectively grapple with these challenges,
new opportunities for AI to proactively contribute to
social good (AI4SG) and equity (AI4Eq) have also
been proposed [1], [2], such as Microsoft's AI for
Earth program. These efforts highlight the potential
of AI to address global challenges and help achieve
targets like the United Nation's sustainable development
goals (SDGs) [3]. Yet, whether AI efforts are
directed explicitly at social good and equity or not,
there are many barriers that stand between aspirations
to be responsible and the translation of these
aspirations into concrete practicalities.
In this article, we review the principles-to-practices
gap, particularly in the context of corporations-the
entities responsible for the majority of AI
development. We offer context on the current state
of responsible AI and then review six potential explanations
for the gap: 1) a misalignment of incentives;
2) the complexity of AI's impacts; 3) a disciplinary
divide; 4) the organizational distribution of responsibilities;
5) the governance of knowledge; and 6)
challenges with identifying best practices. We offer
preliminary recommendations on what frameworks
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2021.3056286
Date of current version: 3 June 2021.
June 2021
and practices are needed to help close the gap
and emphasize impact assessment as one promising
strategy, which we discuss in the context of AI
used for forest ecosystem restoration. We argue that
stakeholders interested in realizing AI's potential for
good should attend to these issues when proposing
pathways forward.
Minding the gap: Principles without
practices
As of 2020, dozens of firms along with nongovernmental
organizations and governments [4] have
produced frameworks, principles, guidelines, and
policies related to the responsible development
and use of AI. These documents are a response to
the social and ethical issues that surround AI, ranging
from labor displacement and algorithmic bias
to privacy and human rights. Moreover, these documents
are arguably a response to breaches of law
and the public trust that have continued in the last
few years, some associated directly with AI. In some
cases, companies have come under serious scrutiny,
facing significant media attention, customer
criticism, and employee petitions, walkouts, and
resignations [5].
Each document typically addresses a set of social
and ethical concerns, proposes principles for ethical
(or responsible or trustworthy) AI in response, and
in some cases offers concrete reforms or internal
governance strategies. Importantly, a common focus
of the documents is the presentation of a set of highlevel
ethical principles that guide an organization's
0278-0097/21©2021 IEEE
81
Anat Fanti
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel
Michael Lennon
George Washington University, Washington,
DC 20052 USA

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021

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