Why Not Regulate AI through Professional Associations?

• In Event: The Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

With each development in AI technologies, the question of how to maximize the usefulness of such technologies while minimizing harm to human societies becomes more pressing and seemingly more fleeting. Tech evangelists emphasize the benefits of AI, claiming any serious regulation will stifle innovation. Tech skeptics tend to stress the potential harms of AI, including the power imbalances created by Big Tech’s dominance in shaping the US (and increasingly global) economy (see Wong, Duncan, and Lake nd), and demand more regulation. Our view is that AI has fundamentally changed how we conceive of human rights values, in particular autonomy, dignity, equality and community (Wong 2023). Regulating AI is necessary, in this view, when it threatens our rights and agency as human beings living in human communities. Often, regulation is seen as either industry-driven or state-led. Either AI companies write industry-friendly proposals for regulation, or states (such as the EU) lead through a package of comprehensive, obligatory, but hard to enforce laws.

We propose a third way of regulation in this paper that can be used in conjunction with existing currents of regulatory efforts: professional regulation. Such regulation mechanisms already exist as professional associations that govern the medical, legal, and engineering professions. Professional associations exist within other state legal structures that govern occupations whose work has high potential for human harm when errors or shortcomings occur. We endorse the latter as the most practical means of ensuring the development of AI that brings in not only technical expertise but enforces ethical behavior by individuals within the profession. Such groups certify individual practitioners, articulate specific performance and ethics standards, sanction transgressions, and advocate for regulation on behalf of members.

Authors

• David A. Lake, University of California, San Diego

• Wendy H. Wong, University of British Columbia