Ethics based auditing (EBA) is a structured process whereby an entitys past or present behaviour is assessed for consistency with moral principles or norms. Recently, EBA has attracted much attention as a governance mechanism that may bridge the gap between principles and practice in AI ethics. However, important aspects of EBA (such as the feasibility and effectiveness of different auditing procedures) have yet to be substantiated by empirical research. In this article, we address this knowledge gap by providing insights from a longitudinal industry case study. Over 12 months, we observed and analysed the internal activities of AstraZeneca, a biopharmaceutical company, as it prepared for and underwent an ethics-based AI audit. While previous literature concerning EBA has focused on proposing evaluation metrics or visualisation techniques, our findings suggest that the main difficulties large multinational organisations face when conducting EBA mirror classical governance challenges. These include ensuring harmonised standards across decentralised organisations, demarcating the scope of the audit, driving internal communication and change management, and measuring actual outcomes. The case study presented in this article contributes to the existing literature by providing a detailed description of the organisational context in which EBA procedures must be integrated to be feasible and effective.

翻译：基于伦理的审计是一种结构化流程，旨在评估实体过去或当前行为是否符合道德原则或规范。近年来，EBA作为一种可能弥合人工智能伦理原则与实践之间差距的治理机制而备受关注。然而，EBA的重要方面（如不同审计程序的可行性与有效性）仍有待实证研究验证。本文通过一项纵向行业案例研究提供实证见解，以填补这一知识空白。在12个月期间，我们观察并分析了生物制药公司阿斯利康为接受基于伦理的人工智能审计所做的筹备工作及其实施过程。尽管现有关于EBA的文献主要聚焦于提出评估指标或可视化技术，但我们的研究发现表明，大型跨国组织实施EBA时面临的主要困难实则反映了经典的治理挑战。这些挑战包括：确保去中心化组织间的标准统一、界定审计范围、推动内部沟通与变革管理，以及衡量实际成效。本文呈现的案例研究通过详细描述EBA程序必须融入的组织情境，为现有文献提供了关于如何实现审计可行性与有效性的实践依据。