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The 4IR: Societal and Ethical Challenges

In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, AI will play the leading role, either in its embodied or non-embodied forms, definitely contributing to the definition of hybrid environments where the concept of machine autonomy gains a renewed sense.
The fear that AI will take over humanity or at least the notion of the possible direct or collateral damages it may cause on individuals and/or on society has led to the discussion of the ethical, social, and legal consequences of the massive deployment of AI systems and to the need to regulate defining common policies. Debates and research on its impact on jobs and economy, the use of personal data, privacy, intrusion, surveillance, transparency, explicability of algorithmic decisions, accountability and responsibility of autonomous/learned machine decisions have consequently gained worldwide momentum.
However, despite these concerns about the possible negative impacts, it is also acknowledged that there is much potential of AI to increase individual and collective well-being. To fully benefit from this potential, we need to go beyond prioritizing exponential growth in developing AI applications and develop them in full respect of human values, simultaneously promoting the education of all the stakeholders involved according to ethical frameworks that stand on unquestionable human rights.