- Bias and Fairness:
- Question: How do we ensure AI systems are free from bias, do not discriminate, and provide fair outcomes for all people, especially in high-stakes areas like hiring, lending, healthcare, and law enforcement?
- Urgency: Biased AI systems are already causing real-world harm and reinforcing systemic inequalities.
- Accountability and Governance (The “Black Box” Problem):
- Question: Who is accountable when an AI system makes a harmful or wrong decision (e.g., in an autonomous vehicle crash, or a medical misdiagnosis)? How do we make complex AI systems transparent and explainable (“XAI”) so humans can understand their decisions?
- Urgency: As AI decision-making becomes more autonomous and widespread, clarity on liability and the “right to explanation” is critical for legal, regulatory, and public trust.
- Job Displacement and Economic Inequality:
- Question: How can we manage the inevitable mass job displacement caused by AI-driven automation to prevent massive increases in poverty and wealth inequality, and ensure the benefits of AI are broadly shared?
- Urgency: Projections suggest AI could significantly disrupt labor markets by 2030, necessitating proactive government and industry strategies for retraining, social safety nets, and economic restructuring.
- Privacy, Surveillance, and Human Autonomy:
- Question: How do we protect personal data and privacy in an age where AI systems require and process massive datasets, and how do we prevent AI from being used for pervasive, often imperceptible, surveillance or manipulation that diminishes human freedom and autonomy?
- Urgency: The rise of generative AI and powerful surveillance tools makes the protection of personal data and the prevention of manipulation an immediate challenge.
- Safety, Misinformation, and Catastrophic Risk (Frontier AI):
- Question: What global standards and guardrails are needed to ensure the safety of increasingly powerful “Frontier AI” systems, and how do we combat the potential for AI to supercharge misinformation, deepfakes, and even autonomous weapons systems?
- Urgency: The accelerating capabilities of AI models are raising concerns about risks that could have destabilizing global consequences if not managed before the end of the decade.
