The Ethics of AI Value Chains: An Approach for Integrating and Expanding AI Ethics Research, Practice, and Governance

Recent criticisms of AI ethics principles and practices have indicated a need for new approaches to AI ethics that can account for and intervene in the design, development, use, and governance of AI systems across multiple actors, contexts, and scales of activity. This paper positions AI value chains as an integrative concept that satisfies those needs, enabling AI ethics researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to take a more comprehensive view of the ethical and practical implications of AI systems. We review and synthesize theoretical perspectives on value chains from the literature on strategic management, service science, and economic geography. We then review perspectives on AI value chains from the academic, industry, and policy literature. We connect an inventory of ethical concerns in AI to the actors and resourcing activities involved in AI value chains to demonstrate that approaching AI ethics issues as value chain issues can enable more comprehensive and integrative research and governance practices. We illustrate this by suggesting five future directions for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to investigate and intervene in the ethical concerns associated with AI value chains.