What rules? Framing the governance of artificial agency
Open accessAbstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not new, but recent years have seen a growing concern about the technology’s political, economic and social impact, including debates about its governance. This paper describes how an analysis of the technology’s governance should build on the understanding of AI as the creation of artificial agents, and that the challenge that governance seeks to address is best understood as one of material agency. It describes how relevant rules can be systematically analyzed across different applications by considering the fundamental properties of artificial agents. The paper concludes by describing how the framework can be applied for further governance studies, and as a means to bridge insights across social science and technical perspectives on AI.
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- Authors
- Gahnberg, C.
- Affiliations
- Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Gahnberg, Carl
- Venue
- Policy and Society
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2021-04-03
- Volume
- 40
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 194-210
- ISSN
- 1449-4035 (ISSN-L)
- 1839-3373
- OpenAlex
- W3182844159
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2020: 3
- FWCI
- 4.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Policy and Society (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Social Sciences › Law › Digitalization, Law, and Regulation
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Cybernetics and Technology in Society
- Keywords
- AI governance, artificial agency, material agency, artificial agents, AI regulation, societal impact of AI
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