SOCIETÀ ITALIANA DI DIRITTO ED ECONOMIA
Ewa Kruszewska (University of Essex)
Abstract
The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) marks a new technological revolution. While AI has an immense potential to contribute to the UK’s economy, its rapid development also brings challenges, such as privacy erosion and workforce displacement that are already transitioning from theoretical concerns to tangible issues. The UK’s principle-based AI regulatory approach, is progressive but incomplete. It overlooks the critical influence of corporate governance on the conduct of companies engaged in AI development. As the UK Government has recently initiated a public consultation on whether the AI industry should be subjected to specific corporate governance mechanisms, this research seeks to bridge regulatory gaps by developing a sector-specific corporate framework that anticipates and addresses the challenges inherent to AI to foster its responsible development.
The article argues that reform should go further than reforming mere corporate governance measures contemplated by the Government, calling for a radical reassessment of relevant laws and regulations governing corporations. It advocates for the development of an industry-specific corporate framework designed to promote responsible AI development by balancing the goals of innovation, international competitiveness, and equitable economic growth. A key strategy for regulating AI effectively presented by the paper involves shifting the regulatory focus to the companies at the forefront of AI technology development. By addressing governance at the company level, the proposed reform aims to tackle the challenges of AI regulation at their source.