Legal and ethical aspects of deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI)

This initiatives was first undertaken through the support of CARE-AI innovation grant. Initially, the project aimed to examine the legal and ethical aspects of deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) in combating climate change. This research project addressed legal issues inherently intertwined with facilitating innovation and transfer of AI-based climate technologies with a particular focus on agriculture sector. Since international laws on climate change are so far silent on the legal consequences of unintended mistakes or erroneous behaviour of the AI, this research will also address the potential ethical standpoints and legitimate treatments for ‘artificial stupidity’ or ‘bias behavior’ of AI (Rolnick et al, 2019; Frey et al, 2018). The output of innovation grant contributes to the ongoing debates about  emerging and revolutionary directions of AI based innovation to combat climate changes in agriculture.  The outputs will be useful for three key players of the society – public sector stakeholders and policymakers, corporate entities, and academics, including research institutes.

Following the innovation grant, we continue to work on the topic in collaboration with the Centre for International Governance Innovation. The initiative has been supported by the Mitacs accelerate program for the post-doctoral fellowship of the Dr. Mahatab Uddin. This phase of the research aims to explore the potential for a legal framework for AI-powered climate-smart agriculture. We will first focus on the innovation stage of technology and the role of intellectual property law in advancing AI-powered climate-smart agricultural technologies. We will then concentrate on the role of law in facilitating the deployment of AI-powered climate-smart agriculture. Ultimately, the research will explore the possibility of creating a sound regulatory framework for AI-powered climate-smart agricultural practices.