The Windfall Clause: Distributing the Benefits of AI for the Common Good

Understand

As the transformative potential of AI has become increasingly salient as a matter of public and political interest, there has been growing discussion about the need to ensure that AI broadly benefits humanity.

• This in turn has spurred debate on the social responsibilities of large technology companies to serve the interests of society at large.
• In response, ethical principles and codes of conduct have been proposed to meet the escalating demand for this responsibility to be taken seriously.
• As yet, however, few institutional innovations have been suggested to translate this responsibility into legal commitments which apply to companies positioned to reap large financial gains from the development and use of AI.