Ethics through the Facets of Artificial Intelligence

2025-07-22

AI Summary

Contemporary AI ethics debates are frequently hindered by conceptual ambiguity. This paper proposes a descriptive conceptual framework for AI grounded in three interrelated dimensions: functional performance, degree of autonomy, and social embeddedness—each mapping to distinct ethical concerns, including accountability attribution, value alignment, and power asymmetry. Integrating philosophical conceptual analysis with sociological empirical insights, the study develops a multi-dimensional, synergistic AI ethics assessment model. Unlike prevailing approaches that treat AI as a monolithic technical artifact, this framework achieves an integrated articulation of conceptual definition, ethical problem mapping, and operationalizable evaluation. It thus bridges theoretical rigor and practical applicability, offering a scalable methodology for AI governance policy design and responsible innovation. The model advances both analytical precision in AI ethics scholarship and actionable guidance for stakeholders across technical, regulatory, and societal domains. (149 words)

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Bias, Fairness & Equity
• Machine Learning: Ethics, Bias, and Fairness
• Humans and AI: Learning Human Values and Preferences

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Fairness and ethical considerations in crowd work and in human-in-the-loop AI systems
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has received unprecedented attention in recent years, raising ethical concerns about the development and use of AI technology. In the present article, we advocate that these concerns stem from a blurred understanding of AI, how it can be used, and how it has been interpreted in society. We explore the concept of AI based on three descriptive facets and consider ethical issues related to each facet. Finally, we propose a framework for the ethical assessment of the use of AI.

Problem

• Address ethical concerns in AI development and usage
• Clarify blurred understanding of AI's societal interpretation
• Propose ethical assessment framework for AI applications

Innovation

• Exploring AI ethics via descriptive facets
• Addressing blurred understanding of AI
• Proposing ethical assessment framework