EthicEdge

As AI technologies become more accessible and various industries find applications for AI, a general question that arises is what would accountability entail? A famous internal memo from IBM in the late '70s reads: “A Computer Can Never Be Held Accountable.” And these words are very prescient in this AI summer. We have long known that only organizations and developers are accountable. But exactly what accountability would entail remains an open question. For his PhD (which he defended on 18...

At EthicEdge, we believe strong ethical leadership begins with deep intellectual foundations. This month, we are proud to celebrate a major milestone achieved by our co-director, Dr Kristy Claassen, who recently attained her PhD from the University of Twente. Kristy successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, Being Human: Evaluating Artificial Intelligence Through the Lens of Ubuntu, in April 2026. This achievement marks the culmination of years of dedicated research into one of the most...

A common misunderstanding is that AI ethics stifles AI innovation, slowing deployment of AI products to market. While organisations may intuitively understand the importance of ethics in their operations and products, this misunderstanding usually leads to shortcuts and ethics white-washing through checklists and equating ethics to law compliance. When ethical concerns arise after deployment it usually turns out to be very costly, both in monetary and reputational terms. On the contrary...