In Defence of Principlism in AI Ethics and Governance

It is widely acknowledged that high-level AI principles are difficult to translate into practices via explicit rules and design guidelines. Consequently, many AI research and development groups that claim to adopt ethics principles have been accused of unwarranted “ethics washing”. Accordingly, there remains a question as to if and how high-level principles should be expected to influence the development of safe and beneficial AI. In this short commentary I discuss two roles high-level principles might play in AI ethics and governance. The first and most often discussed “start-point” function quickly succumbs to the complaints outlined above. I suggest, however, that a second “cultural influence” function is where the primary value of high-level principles lies.