From the “rush to ethics” to the “race for governance” in Artificial Intelligence

This paper engages with the emerging field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance wishing to contribute to the relevant literature from three angles grounded in international human rights law, Law and Technology, Science and Technology Studies (STS) and theories of technology. Focusing on the shift from ethics to governance, it offers a bird-eye overview of the developments in AI governance, focusing on the comparison between ethical principles and binding rules for the governance of AI, and critically reviewing the latest regulatory developments. Secondly, focusing on the role of human rights, it takes the argument that human rights offer a more robust and effective framework a step further, arguing for the necessity to extend human rights obligations to also directly apply to private actors in the context of AI governance. Finally, it offers insights for AI governance borrowing from the Internet Governance history and the broader technology governance field.