Let' s Do Our Bit: How Information Systems Research Can Contribute to Ethical Artificial Intelligence

With the growing diffusion of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a variety of novel ethical challenges become apparent. As a possible solution, the field of Ethical AI (EAI), the conviction, that to build trust in AI, ethical guidelines must be enforced, is gaining popularity. The importance of such guidelines has been recognized by regulatory institutions like the European Commission and led to the ‘Artificial Intelligence Act’, a legal framework to achieve EAI. In view of the growing importance of EAI and its implications for how societies interact with AI, it remains unclear to which extent information systems (IS) literature, socio-technical by its nature, can contribute to EAI. This article’s contribution is threefold: It provides an explanation of the AI Act, introduces a systematic analysis of current IS literature on EAI, and derives future research directions for aspects of EAI which are currently insufficiently covered by IS scholars.