What Is the Cost of AI Ethics? Initial Conceptual Framework and Empirical Insights

AI ethics has become a common topic of discussion in both media and academic research. Companies are also increasingly interested in AI ethics, although there are still various challenges associated with bringing AI ethics into practice. Especially from a business point of view, AI ethics remains largely unexplored. The lack of established processes and practices for implementing AI ethics is an issue in this regard as well, as resource estimation is challenging if the process is fuzzy. In this paper, we begin tackling this issue by providing initial insights into the cost of AI ethics. Building on existing literature on software quality cost estimation, we draw parallels between the past state of quality in Software Engineering (SE) and the current state of AI ethics. Empirical examples are then utilized to showcase some elements of the cost of implementing AI ethics. While this paper provides an initial look into the cost of AI ethics and useful insights from comparisons to software quality, the practice of implementing AI ethics remains nascent, and, thus, a better empirical understanding of AI ethics is required going forward.