Ethics in Regulating Artificial Intelligence: An Overview of the Recent Legislation in the European Union

Abstract

This article examines how ethical values and principles are embedded and operationalised within the European Union's artificial intelligence (AI) legal framework. Combining a systematic interpretive mapping of ethical principles with legal doctrinal and ethics-informed analysis, the study analyses six core EU instruments relevant to AI governance: the AI Act, GDPR, Digital Services Act, Data Governance Act, Data Act, and DSM Directive. It investigates which ethical values are reflected in these laws, how they are prioritised, and to what extent they are legally enforceable. The analysis shows that non-maleficence, fairness, and privacy form the enforceable ethical core of EU AI regulation, primarily implemented through risk-based safeguards and data protection obligations. Explicability plays a prominent but largely supportive role, mainly operationalised through transparency requirements. By contrast, values such as democracy, solidarity, and sustainability remain weakly embedded and appear predominantly in non-binding provisions. This distribution reveals a friction between the EU's ambition to position itself as a global leader in ethics-based, human-centric AI governance and the selective legal translation of ethical commitments.

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