Published: May 21, 2020



^As businesses rush to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) for products and services—from driverless cars to algorithms that can spot cancer—technologists, philosophers and governments are starting to tap the brakes. 

How can we be sure that AI will be trustworthy? How can we know that its applications are unbiased, that they are secure from attack, protect privacy and will do more good than harm?

To chart a path forward, the European Union has taken a leading role in laying out guidelines for how companies can put AI to work ethically and responsibly. 

Two years ago, the EU formed the High-Level Expert Group on AI—a group of 52 leaders from education, business, law and other disciplines—to develop a set of AI ethics guidelines. It released its first framework in 2019 and joins a number of other countries—including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, India and Japan—that are making ethical AI a top priority.