Toward Addressing Inequality and Social Exclusion by Algorithms: Human-Centric AI through the Lens of Ubuntu

Abstract

The perspective of human-centric AI (HCAI) encompasses the development of technologies that not only “augment, amplify, empower, and enhance human performance” (Shneiderman, 2022: 4) but also embrace human values. In its Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI, the Independent High-Level Expert Group on AI set up by the European Commission (AI HLEG) underlines that the human-centric approach to AI should be rooted in “respect for human dignity, in which the human being enjoys a unique and inalienable moral status” (European Commission, 2019: 37). Human dignity is indeed considered the cornerstone of both the values on which the EU is founded 1 and the human rights enshrined in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights 2 (European Union, 1997; European Union, 2010). Thus, in EU law, dignity is a multilayered concept-a value, a fundamental right, as well as an ethical rationale for principles, rights, and obligations. In this sense, dignity constitutes “the bridge between the two disciplines of law and practical philosophy” (Frischhut, 2019: 130).