Exploring Moral Exercises for Human Oversight of AI systems: Insights from Three Pilot Studies
This addresses the challenge of ethical AI governance for organizations and practitioners, but it is incremental as it builds on existing philosophical and ethical frameworks.
The paper tackles the problem of enabling effective human oversight of AI systems by exploring moral exercises as a method to cultivate virtues in AI actors, supported by findings from three pilot studies that offer insights into fostering responsible AI culture.
This paper elaborates on the concept of moral exercises as a means to help AI actors cultivate virtues that enable effective human oversight of AI systems. We explore the conceptual framework and significance of moral exercises, situating them within the contexts of philosophical discourse, ancient practices, and contemporary AI ethics scholarship. We outline the core pillars of the moral exercises methodology - eliciting an engaged personal disposition, fostering relational understanding, and cultivating technomoral wisdom - and emphasize their relevance to key activities and competencies essential for human oversight of AI systems. Our argument is supported by findings from three pilot studies involving a company, a multidisciplinary team of AI researchers, and higher education students. These studies allow us to explore both the potential and the limitations of moral exercises. Based on the collected data, we offer insights into how moral exercises can foster a responsible AI culture within organizations, and suggest directions for future research.