AI, Bureaucracy, and Institutional Ethics: Current Trends and Future Considerations

With the more pronounced infusion of artificial intelligence (AI) into public sector operations, there exist a host of ethical concerns that arise pertaining to how public sector organizations make decisions about workflow and the automation of processes, bureaucratic accountability, and sustaining democratic governance and transparency. Through the lens of institutional ethics, this article explores the morality of using AI as a tool in government and how an increased reliance on stronger AI approaches presents heightened ethical and practical blind spots that have significant ramifications for sustaining the public trust. In considering recent AI initiatives at the national level, we argue that pre-existing codes of ethics, which are framed around the theoretical genre of institutional ethics, must evolve coterminously as AI becomes more integrated as a tool in government. We explore trends for the two most recent presidential administrations, using the AI national strategies from both to focus upon two primary areas of consideration relating to institutional ethics: first involves the ethical considerations relating to work completion and processes that emerge from deeper and stronger integration of AI tools in public sector organizations; and second reflects upon bureaucratic accountability as AI tools change the nature of responsibility and decision-making.