Risky Artificial Intelligence: The Role of Incidents in the Path to AI Regulation

Abstract

The history of high-tech regulation is a path studded with incidents. Each adverse event allowed the gathering of more information on high technologies and their impacts on people, infrastructure, and other technologies, posing the bases for their regulation. With the increasing diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) use, it is plausible that this connection between incidents and high-tech regulation will be confirmed for this technology as well. This study focuses on the role of AI incidents and an efficient strategy of incident data collection and analysis to improve our knowledge of the impact of AI technologies and regulate them better. To pursue this objective, the paper first analyses the evolution of high-tech regulation in the aftermath of incidents. Second, the paper focuses on the recent developments in AI regulation through soft and hard laws. Third, this study assesses the quality of the available AI incident databases and their capacity to provide information useful for opening and regulating the AI black box. This study acknowledges the importance of implementing a strategy for gathering and analysing AI incident data and approving flexible AI regulation that evolves with such a new technology and with the information that we will receive from adverse events—an approach that is also endorsed by the European Commission and its proposal to regulate and harmonise rules on AI.