AI ethics is one of the most pressing issues today, given the dizzying pace of development and use of AI. I have been working on the issue since mid-2021, participating in academic discussions and conferences on the subject (ISBEE Bilbao, Spain, 2022).
The current project seeks to understand and highlight what AI represents for sustainability. This involves, among other things, reflecting on the positive and negative impacts of AI on the environment, society, the economy and governance. Read a blog post on the subject
This project began in January 2024 and has been carried out together with a business ethics researcher from the University of Navarra, who supervised my Final Master’s Work (TFM) on the subject.
The paper I defended on June 18, 2024 is entitled:“The Environment, Social, and Governance of Artificial Intelligence: The ESG of AI“. It is the result of my second master’s degree, in “Gobierno y Cultura de las Organizaciones” (UNAV, Pamplona, Spain, 2023-2024).
Here is the summary presented on that occasion:
Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) has shown positive results for sustaining the environment and society. While AI for sustainability is intensively reported in the public audience, the sustainability of AI is less acknowledged, which is related to AI’s massive consumption of data, energy, water, carbon emissions, and influence on the people’s life. Besides this not well-recognized outcome, the governance dimension, embraced by the ESG, is almost unexplored in the literature.
The aim of this study is to fill this gap by reviewing the literature in the intersection between ESG, AI & Ethics. We defined a research design based on three sub-goals and three research questions, to select articles from Web of Science.
Through mapping the intellectual structure of the field (authors, journals, articles, keywords), and emerging themes, perspectives, and ethical backgrounds (n=101 articles), we found the main AI’s positive and negative impacts on ESG, considering their ethical assumptions. So far, articles offer evidence of AI’s impacts on the environment and society, and assume a prescriptive position on governance, partially because of AI’s broader, long-term effects. We also offer preliminary recommendations for AI governance in companies, pointing to the digital dimension of ESG.
Keywords: AI ethics; sustainable AI; Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG); Green AI.
