A Reflection on How Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the Ethics of Facial Analysis AI Can Inform EU Policymaking

The EU AI Act proposal addresses, among other applications, AI systems that enable facial classification and emotion recognition. As part of previous work, we have investigated how citizens deliberate about the validity of AI-based facial classifications in the advertisement and the hiring contexts (N = 3745). In our current research, we extend this investigation by collecting laypeople’s ethical evaluations of facial analysis AI in Japan, Argentina, Kenya and the United States (N ~4000). Our project serves as a motivation to ask how such cross-cultural AI ethics perspectives can inform EU policymaking regarding AI systems, which enable facial classification and emotion recognition. We refer to suggestions on achieving policy impact and aim to discuss this topic space with workshop participants.