A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
Fairness in AI Systems Development : Beyond EU AI Act Compliance
Authors: Westerstrand, Salla
Editors: Efi Papatheocharous, Siamak Farshidi, Slinger Jansen, Sonja Hyrynsalmi
Conference name: International Conference on Software Business
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland
Publication year: 2025
Journal: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
Book title : Software Business 15th International Conference, ICSOB 2024, Utrecht, The Netherlands, November 18–20, 2024, Proceedin
Journal name in source: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
First page : 99
Last page: 113
ISBN: 978-3-031-85848-2
eISBN: 978-3-031-85849-9
ISSN: 1865-1348
eISSN: 1865-1356
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-85849-9_9
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-85849-9_9
Rapid popularisation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has accelerated initiatives for ethical AI development. In the European Union (EU), the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) entered into force on the 1st of August 2024, which has steered the focus in many organisations towards compliance. As the AIA is not an ethics guideline, it is reasonable to assume that measures beyond compliance are required for ethical AI systems development. To help unravel what is already covered by the AIA and what not, this paper studies the premise the AIA lays out for ethical AI systems development. Drawing from critical theory and using John Rawls’s theory of justice, the paper shows how the Act provides limited support for basic liberties, equality of opportunity and the least advantaged members of society, which calls for attention concerning ethical reflection in the AI system lifecycle to ensure ethically sustainable AI development. Recommendations are given on what kinds of ethical considerations organisations should include in Agile AI development process to steer the development towards justice as fairness.
