Ethics Readiness of Artificial Intelligence: A Practical Evaluation Method
This work addresses the problem of bridging ethical theory and engineering practice in AI development for designers and stakeholders, offering a structured evaluation tool that is incremental in building on existing ethical frameworks.
The paper tackles the challenge of integrating ethical principles into AI system design by introducing Ethics Readiness Levels (ERLs), a four-level iterative method that translates ethical values into practical prompts and controls, demonstrated through case studies on an AI facial sketch generator and a collaborative industrial robot to catalyze design changes and foster an ethics-by-design mindset.
We present Ethics Readiness Levels (ERLs), a four-level, iterative method to track how ethical reflection is implemented in the design of AI systems. ERLs bridge high-level ethical principles and everyday engineering by turning ethical values into concrete prompts, checks, and controls within real use cases. The evaluation is conducted using a dynamic, tree-like questionnaire built from context-specific indicators, ensuring relevance to the technology and application domain. Beyond being a managerial tool, ERLs help facilitate a structured dialogue between ethics experts and technical teams, while our scoring system helps track progress over time. We demonstrate the methodology through two case studies: an AI facial sketch generator for law enforcement and a collaborative industrial robot. The ERL tool effectively catalyzes concrete design changes and promotes a shift from narrow technological solutionism to a more reflective, ethics-by-design mindset.