With the EU AI Act entering into force under the New Legislative Framework, the standardization of AI technologies transitions from a conceptual goal to a legal mandate. In recent years, efforts have been made to evaluate the societal impacts of AI technologies beyond mere legal safeguards, aiming to “operationalize,” “standardize,” and even “certify” ethics. At the same time, actual ethical concerns regarding the operationalization of ethics have grown. In the forthcoming conference, our main questions focus on hidden stakeholders, values, and how profit-making might interfere with certifying and standardizing AI technologies.

The conference will revolve around two main topics:
1. The certification of ethics.
2. Driving forces and power imbalances in the current AI ecosystem (especially regarding its governance and certification).

This conference is the final event of the philosophical sub-project of the KI.NRW-Flagship project “Zertifizierte KI”.