The WA Data Science Innovation Hub is delighted to welcome Dr Jacqueline Boaks as WADSIH’s Philosopher-in-Residence.
A moral philosopher with deep expertise in ethics, leadership and democracy, Jacqueline joins WADSIH at a critical time — as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in our workplaces, institutions, public services and daily lives. Her work will explore some of the most important questions facing Australia as AI adoption accelerates: who benefits, who decides, what protections are needed, and how we ensure emerging technologies serve the common good.
Jacqueline is the Curriculum Lead with the Curtin Centre for Applied Ethics and a founding member of the Centre. She is also Vice President of the Australian Association of Professional and Applied Ethics, editor of Research into Ethical Issues in Organizations, and has published widely on democracy, ethics and leadership.
In this article, Jacqueline reflects on what artificial intelligence means for our social contract — and why the discussion must move beyond technology and economics to consider legitimacy, fairness, power and the kind of society we want to build.
What does artificial intelligence mean for our social contract?
By Dr Jacqueline Boaks
Much of the discussion around the rise of artificial intelligence in recent years has been technological or economic in nature. While these are important considerations, the question of what artificial intelligence — and its use — means for our social contract is broader, deeper and arguably more pressing.
Societies are much more than the economies they host. At their best, they are pluralistic places that nonetheless share a commitment to a common good. In modern democracies such as Australia, government is justified by the consent of the governed, both through elections and through the obligation of governments to deliver security and welfare for citizens.
These commitments, and the conditions that support them, form what is often referred to as the “social contract” — the set of norms, shared assumptions and agreements, explicit or tacit, that sit at the heart of many of our discussions about the common good. The social contract shapes the relationship between government and society, between members of society, and between society and future generations.
In its ideal form, the social contract outlines what makes institutions legitimate. The extent to which institutions are fair and just determines how well they fulfil this social contract.
Since the end of World War II, Australia has positioned itself as a social democracy with a strong welfare state and a commitment to equality of opportunity, although this has not always been realised perfectly or extended to all. Our political system has also traditionally limited the ability of large donors to influence public debate and the outcomes of elections, partly through legislation and partly through cultural norms.
Artificial intelligence raises questions about the social contract in novel and pressing ways. These issues are not entirely unique or unprecedented, but their scope and pace are significant.
A core question is what we have a right to expect from our governments when it comes to artificial intelligence. This includes how the benefits of AI should be shared, and how citizens should be protected from new forms of power that AI represents — power that is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of large, for-profit organisations headquartered far from Australia.
A related question is how this power might be used for good. AI does not only represent a potential threat to the common good; it also presents opportunities to actively pursue it. If developed and governed well, AI could support better decision-making, improve public services and help address complex social challenges.
A further question concerns the right settings for the ownership and control of decisions about artificial intelligence. In recent years, innovation — and therefore control over many of these decisions — has increasingly moved from governments and universities to the private, for-profit sector. What level and form of regulation is desirable in this context?
Moral and political philosophy has a long history of considering these questions and reflecting on what makes our social contracts legitimate: from Plato’s Republic and its foundational focus on what makes political power legitimate, to John Locke’s emphasis on securing individual rights, through to twentieth-century debates between liberal thinkers focused on individual liberties and rights theorists and their critics.
As Philosopher-in-Residence at WADSIH, I will be considering what AI means for our social contract, specifically in the Australian context. These questions are not abstract. They go to the heart of how we build trust, protect fairness, uphold democratic legitimacy and ensure that artificial intelligence serves society — not the other way around.