Ethical & Legal Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence. The Regulatory Regime for High-Risk Artificial Intelligence Systems

With due regard to nowadays’ societies confronting harsh political or environmental threats, the protection of critical infrastructure has become both a challenge and a priority within the European Union. The TESTUDO project (“Autonomous Swarm of Heterogeneous resources in infra structure protection via threat prediction and prevention”), fi nanced by the “Horizon Europe” programme accentuates on these needs by providing innovative solutions for continuous monitoring, prevention and prediction of hazardous events. The project applies state-of-the-art technologies and AI-based models to enhance cybersecurity, as well as ensures continuous surveillance of the environment and autonomous resource allocation. The TESTUDO platform being developed within the project includes the latest technologies for: fast and coordinated automated response; robust communication networks with highest coverage; cognition capabilities for detection of threats; increased situational awareness and decision-making; exploiting novel HMI and XR technologies.

In view of the above, an interdisciplinary approach is being applied in the current paper, discussing applicable ethical and legal aspects that arise in the context of Artificial Intelligence (hereinafter “AI”), thereby allowing for the alignment of AI systems with human well-being, respect for human autonomy, privacy, social responsibility, transparency, security, etc. The purpose of the current report is thus to highlight that the minimization of potential adverse effects with regard to the aforementioned technical aspects is of primary relevance, by also explaining how the said objectives are to be achieved.