Exploring ethics and human rights in artificial intelligence – A Delphi study
Open accessAbstract
Ethical and human rights issues of artificial intelligence (AI) are a prominent topic of research and innovation policy as well as societal and scientific debate. It is broadly recognised that AI-related technologies have properties that can give rise to ethical and human rights concerns, such as privacy, bias and discrimination, safety and security, economic distribution, political participation or the changing nature of warfare. Numerous ways of addressing these issues have been suggested. In light of the complexity of this discussion, we undertook a Delphi study with experts in the field to determine the most pressing issues and prioritise appropriate mitigation strategies. The results of the study demonstrate the difficulty of defining clear priorities. Our findings suggest that the debate around ethics and human rights of AI would benefit from being reframed and more strongly emphasising the systems nature of AI ecosystems.
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The importance of privacy practices does not appear to be a major concern among experts.
“However, the importance of such practices does not appear to be a major concern among experts.”
From Artificial intelligence in innovation management: A review of innovation capabilities and a taxonomy of <scp>AI</scp> applications (2025) · cites this paper as Stahl et al., 2023
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- Authors
- Stahl, B. C., Brooks, L., Hatzakis, T., Santiago, N., & Wright, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Nottingham (GB)
- De Montfort University (GB)
- Trilateral Research & Consulting (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Stahl, Bernd Carsten
- Venue
- Technological Forecasting and Social Change
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2023-06
- Volume
- 191
- Pages
- 122502
- ISSN
- 0040-1625 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4360602416
- Cited by
- 95
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 7 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 23.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Technological Forecasting and Social Change (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- DMU Open Research Archive (De Montfort University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (submittedVersion)
- Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- European Commission (786641, HORIZON2020, 945539)
- Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (#945539, 786641)
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (945539, EP/T022493/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Social Sciences › Law › Digitalization, Law, and Regulation
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Innovation, Sustainability, Human-Machine Systems
- Keywords
- AI ethics, human rights, AI governance, privacy, algorithmic bias and discrimination, economic distribution, political participation, war, AI ecosystem, mitigation measures, expert consensus
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