Nemitz2018Constitutionaldemocracy
Paul Nemitz, "Constitutional democracy and technology in the age of artificial intelligence"
Bibliographic info
⇒ NemitzP.2018 Constitutional democracy and technology in the age of artificial intelligence. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 376: 20180089. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2018.0089
Commentary
Nemitz emphasizes the importance of implementing the principles of democracy, rule of law, and human rights into AI design to support constitutional democracy. He argues that these three elements form the trinitarian formula for our constitutional faith. The text is well-structured in the way that Nemitz first addresses some problems concerning the monopoly of certain mega corporations in AI development (Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon). We need to understand this concentration of power of internet giants, before solutions can be found for the possible threats to democracy, rule of law, and human rights. In the middle sections, Nemitz explains how internet caused a culture of lawlessness and irresponsibility. So, he elarborates on the problem. In the fourth section Nemitz switches the tone and topic and writes about ethics and AI. This is followed by a section about the GDPR and then Nemitz explains how a three-level technological impact assessment for AI is necessary in order for AI not to harm the trinitarian formula of our constituional faith. Honestly, I did not find concrete weaknesses while reading the text. All sections are logically following from each other and the conclusion is clear.
Excerpts & Key Quotes
Intentions
- Page 7:
"In a move of genius, the corporations interested have started to finance multiple initiatives to work on ethics of AI, thus, while pretending best intentions, effectively delaying the debate and work on law for AI."
Comment:
The corporations refers to the few internet giants.
These giants have four sources of power:
- They have very deep pockets, so a lot of money can be invested to influence politics and markets.
- They control the digital environment for the elections.
- They collect personal data for profit and profiling based on both off- and online behaviour.
- They dominate the development and system integration into usable AI services.
These four points, back up the relevance for a good (ethical) regulation in order to protect democracy, rule of law, and human rights. We should include these giants in the discussion about how the technology need to be shaped to support the maintenance and strengthen of the constitutional democracy. However, we should always be aware of the reach of the arms of these giants.
Precision of the law
- Page 9:
"The claim that the law is not precise enough to regulate complex technology and that a law which is below the detail, precision and user-friendliness of a good code, is not a good law and should thus not be adopted by the legislator, is another fallacy of the engineering view of the world."
Comment:
I am not sure if I totally agree with Nemitz on this claim. It seems that AI technologies have a lot of black boxes that are not transparent or understandable for the majority of the users. I believe that it is not possible to make a very detailed legislation about these rapidly changing technologies, also because AI changes faster then legislation. Further, Nemitz explains that a democratic process requires compromise. Yes, that is a fundamental characteristic of democracy, but I think that in the case of transparency and power of internet giants, strict rules can be applied and that compromise should not always be accepted by the legislators. One side note is ofcourse that the internet is crossing boundaries, so it is difficult to create national legislation. This makes the problem more complex.
Three-level solution
- Page 12:
"A new intensity of three-level impact assessment of technology is a necessary component of a new intensity of the dialogue between technology and democracy which is vital at a time when we are entering a world in which technologies like AI become all-pervasive and are actually incorporating and executing the rules according to which we live in large part."
Comment:
There needs to be impact assesment on three levels. First, on the level of policy making and legislation. Second, on the level of the developers and users of such technologies. And third, on the level of individuals, who have the right to transparency of AI technologies, since the technologies also affect them a lot. A dialogue between these three levels is necessary in order to support the maintenance of the constitutional democracy. I believe that Nemitz explains this three-level impact assessment very briefly and clearly, and that it can be implemented by legislators. The dialogue will probably lead to a compromise, but the trinitarian formula for our constitutional democracy will be respected.
Joel: Do you think Nemitz's argument is going in the right direction here?