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“We need a much deeper social understanding of the role we want to give AI. Do we want to use it wisely, with all its opportunities, as a tool for our goals, or do we want to let it and its developers control us?”

Ethical questions are closely linked to the use of artificial intelligence and the development of ever-new AI applications. As an ethicist, Prof. Dr. Christiane Woopen has studied the implications of artificial intelligence for ethical questions for many years. As a professor of life ethics at the University of Bonn and a former chair of the European Ethics Council, she shapes this field of research with great expertise. In an interview with KI.NRW, she talks about her work at the Center for Life Ethics and current regulatory debates surrounding artificial intelligence.

Prof. Woopen, you are dealing with the topic of artificial intelligence, among other things, as part of your Life Ethics research: Was there a special moment in the history of AI that made you aware of this topic?
It was not a specific door that suddenly opened and led me to AI, but rather a longer path on which it became a companion. What became professionally relevant was what has been called Big Data since the early 2000s. In my role as chair of the German Ethics Council and as a member of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO, I dealt intensively with questions surrounding big data and health. Over time, questions surrounding artificial intelligence were added, which we have also been conducting research on since then.

You have held the first Heinrich Hertz Professorship for Life Ethics at the University of Bonn since October 2021. You are also the director of the Center for Life Ethics in the Transdisciplinary Research Area 4 ”Individuals, Institutions and Societies”. How can one imagine your work at the university?
Overall, we are a team of around 30 employees from various disciplines. All our projects are interdisciplinary, most are international and transdisciplinary, which means that non-scientific actors are involved. We aim to contribute to a good life for everyone through research, teaching, and consulting. This relates to different aspects of life, such as healthcare, the environment, and designing ethical futures with people from diverse cultures and beliefs. Our starting point is always our principle of life ethics: The ethically good consists in respecting or promoting the development, beauty, and abundance of all life.

What is the role of your Center for Life Ethics in the current debate about artificial intelligence?
In several research projects, we are currently dealing primarily with the role of AI in healthcare: What role do the tech giants play? We have prepared a detailed report on 16 companies worldwide. What ethical framework conditions should apply when using AI to predict diseases such as Alzheimer’s, dementia or mental illnesses? What ethical considerations should be taken into account when developing and using individual virtual twins of the brain? How can AI be designed according to an ethics-by-design approach, i.e., developed, designed, and applied in such a way that ethical concerns are taken into account and incorporated from the outset.

With your work, you aim to offer ethical guidance and smart solutions for dealing with AI. What social challenges do you foresee in relation to artificial intelligence?
I see two main challenges: Firstly, we need a much deeper social understanding of the role we want to give AI. Do we want to use it wisely, with all its opportunities, as a tool for our goals, or do we want to let it and its developers control us? This immediately leads to the second question: How much power are we willing to give to big tech companies and their decision-makers? In my opinion, their disproportionately large technical, financial, and therefore political options mean that they currently have far too much power over all of our lives.

In addition to your university work, you were chair of the European Ethics Council between 2017 and 2021 and, in your role, advised the EU Commission. What contact did you have with artificial intelligence in this role, and what do you derive from this for the present?
After my election as chair, we first drafted a statement on artificial intelligence, robotics, and ›autonomous‹ systems. Based on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, we developed ethical standards for AI and, unlike the High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence set up by the European Commission, we put a human rights approach at the forefront. We did the same in the Federal Government’s Data Ethics Commission in 2018-2019. Fortunately, the European Commission ultimately adopted this ethical foundation and the risk-based approach proposed by the Data Ethics Commission for the AI Act, which is binding for all countries in the European Union.

Where should ethical questions be given more space in research on AI and with artificial intelligence?
Everywhere. Ethical aspects should be considered from the outset in accordance with an ethics-by-design approach. This includes far more questions than just privacy protection, which is often the main focus. Depending on the application context, it is also about questions of justice and solidarity, dignity, freedom and self-determination, security, ecological, economic and social sustainability, solidarity, and the impact on individuals’ and society’s opportunities to lead a free and good life.

What should we pay attention to so that AI development remains socially and human-friendly?
To ensure AI remains socially and human-friendly and – in the case of social media, for example – to become so at all, we should focus on three key areas: an ethically good approach to professional and private use by individuals, the distribution of technical and financial power, and the major socio-technical threats to our free and democratic political system.

Finally: How would you like us to look back on the current debates about AI development in ten years?
Given the rapid technological developments, we can hardly imagine what role they will play in ten years, but I hope that in ten years we can look back with pride, having given ethical aspects an increasingly significant role.