Let Me Take Over : Variable Autonomy for Meaningful Human Control

• As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to expand its reach, the demand for human control and the development of AI systems that adhere to our legal, ethical, and social values also grows. Many (international and national) institutions have taken steps in this direction and published guidelines for the development and deployment of responsible AI systems. These guidelines, however, rely heavily on high-level statements that provide no clear criteria for system assessment, making the effective control over systems a challenge. “Human oversight” is one of the requirements being put forward as a means to support human autonomy and agency. In this paper, we argue that human presence alone does not meet this requirement and that such a misconception may limit the use of automation where it can otherwise provide so much benefit across industries. We therefore propose the development of systems with variable autonomy—dynamically adjustable levels of autonomy—as a means of ensuring meaningful human control over an artefact by satisfying all three core values commonly advocated in ethical guidelines: accountability, responsibility, and transparency.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Datavetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Computer Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

accountability

adjustable autonomy

AI ethics

human oversight

responsibility

responsible AI

transparency

variable autonomy

data- och systemvetenskap

computer and systems sciences

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)