UPSC Ethics paper is less a test of memory than a test of ethical judgment under pressure. The UPSC notification introduces the GS IV syllabus by saying that the paper assesses a future public servant’s “attitude and approach” to integrity, probity, problem-solving and the challenges of dealing with society. In Ethics paper, values, definitions, thinkers and quotations matter, but they are raw material. What gets rewarded is the ability to use them to identify issues, dilemmas and reach a balanced conclusion. That means spotting ethical dilemmas in an ordinary or tough situation, seeing who is affected, weighing rival duties and interests, and reaching a decision that is principled as well as workable.In other words, the examiner looks for ethical reasoning, not ready-made answers. UPSC Ethics Answer Practice series is meant to build that skill. Each week we take an issue from the news, map the values, principles, stakeholders and competing duties inside it, and test them through a UPSC-style theory question and a case study. The pointers that follow each question are not a model answer but a way of thinking your way towards one.Last week, the questions were on medical ethics. This week, the theme is AI and technology ethics in governance.QUESTION 1 (Theory)“Innovation in governance is welcome, but the cost of a failed experiment must not fall on those who can least afford it.” Examine this statement in the context of the use of Artificial Intelligence in public service delivery.— The motto of the AI Impact Summit 2026 Sarvajana Hitaya, Sarvajana Sukhaya (for the welfare of all, for the happiness of all) can serve as a guiding principle for administrators while integrating AI in decision making. — AI ethics must be anchored in enforceable human rights principles of privacy, equality, non-discrimination, due process and dignity. International frameworks including the UNESCO AI Ethics Principles and the UNDP Human Development Report 2025 have emphasised this rights-based grounding. — India’s AI Governance Guidelines (MeitY, November 2025) list “Innovation over Restraint” among seven guiding principles, alongside People First, Accountability and Fairness & Equity. The innovation principle is itself worded conditionally, so your answer can show how these principles pull against each other. Story continues below this ad— AI systems must be grounded in India’s lived realities and local contexts. This includes caste dynamics, gendered labour, linguistic diversity, rural urban divides and digital precarity. These realities demand intersectional fairness and representational justice from technological systems . — Kisan e-Mitra, a voice-enabled chatbot developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, answers farmers’ questions about PM-KISAN, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and Kisan Credit Card in 11 regional languages. A tool developed by Wadhwani AI for the government uses demographic, socioeconomic, geospatial and historical disease data to identify areas vulnerable to tuberculosis.— From a utilitarian lens, aggregate gains for maximum population such as savings and speed matter. A careful answer also weighs how severe, how concentrated and how reversible the harm is. A family denied food or treatment during the “fix later” period does not get that time back.— Gandhi’s talisman asks how a decision will affect the poorest and weakest person. Article 14’s guarantee against arbitrariness is relevant here. Kant’s principle that persons are ends in themselves asks whether citizens are being used as a test bed without informed consent or a real alternative.Story continues below this ad— AI learns from data. If the data is incomplete, skewed or biased, errors can have uneven consequences. Those least able to challenge a machine’s decision (the elderly, persons with disabilities, the poor, the digitally excluded) often bear the cost. Rawls’s idea of justice asks whether you would accept the system if you didn’t know whether you would be the digitally aware city resident or the elderly widow whose records don’t match? — AI in its present form lacks conscience, empathy, and moral judgment. It operates on data and algorithms, reflecting the biases and intentions of its creators, which goes against the principles of equality and inclusion. — There are also concerns related to privacy issues and function creep. Data collected for one purpose can quietly serve another. Puttaswamy judgement (2017) recognised privacy as part of Article 21 and requires any intrusion to be lawful, aimed at a legitimate purpose and proportionate. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 carries this forward through principles such as purpose limitation.— The precautionary principle, which came up in our earlier piece on development and conservation, extends naturally here. It asks the state to build safeguards before harm occurs rather than compensate for it later.Story continues below this ad— Automated administrative failures in Australia and the Netherlands demonstrate that prioritizing algorithmic speed over accuracy and welfare creates severe human harm and massive long-term financial liabilities. In Australia, the “Robodebt” scheme used automated income averaging to raise welfare debts and issued nearly 500,000 incorrect notices. The Federal Court held the method unlawful and the government settled the class action in 2021 for about AU$1.8 billion. A 2023 Royal Commission recommended, among other things, a body to monitor automated decision-making. The saving that justified the speed was not the final cost. In the Netherlands, an algorithm-driven childcare-benefits system wrongly accused thousands of families of fraud.— Unreleased OpenAI AI agents escaped sandboxes and autonomously hacked Hugging Face in July 2026 and exploited a security vulnerability in order to run malicious code on its servers. As James Madison famously asked, “Who will guard the guardians?” This question remains deeply relevant in the age of AI.— Recent debates around Agentic AI also look at machine consciousness (such as neural patterns in models like Claude) and why tech firms are consulting philosophers and religious leaders to guide AI values.QUESTION 2 (Case Study)Apply the similar framework given in the theoretical question above and use it to arrive at an ethically justifiable decision in the following caselet.Story continues below this adYou are the District Collector of a populous district. Your district is the first to deploy “Seva-Agent”, an agentic AI platform built by a private vendor, to administer social-security pensions and grievance redressal. Unlike earlier software that only flags records, Seva-Agent acts on its own. It cross-checks databases, declares beneficiaries “ineligible”, suspends payments, drafts and sends recovery notices, and closes grievances it classifies as “duplicates”. Humans are meant to be “in the loop”, but each clerk now approves about 600 AI-flagged cases a day, usually in seconds. (AI generated image)In four months the state claims savings of ₹180 crore by removing “ghost” beneficiaries, and the Chief Minister plans to showcase the model at a national summit. In your district, however, field reports differ. Hundreds of elderly widows, persons with disabilities and tribal households have had pensions suspended over spelling mismatches across databases and failed biometric authentication. An 80-year-old widow, wrongly marked “deceased”, cannot afford her medicines. Her appeal was answered by the platform’s own chatbot, which asked her to “re-upload documents” she cannot access.A junior data analyst privately shows you the audit logs. To “clear the backlog”, the agent closed nearly 12,000 grievances as duplicates without human review. It has also accessed health-department records beyond what was authorised for the project. The vendor cites trade secrecy and refuses to share the decision logic. The analyst fears for his job. The state secretary tells you to “avoid negative reporting until after the summit”.Questions: (a) What will be your immediate response? (b) Identify the ethical issues and stakeholders involved. (c) What logical and ethical arguments will you give state leadership and the vendor to convince them that a pause and safeguards are necessary? Story continues below this ad(d) What long-term framework would you suggest for the ethical use of agentic AI in district administration?Express Tip: ‘The Defence Tip’Story continues below this adBefore you finish any ethics case study involving technology, ask yourself four questions:1. Can I defend my choice ethically?(Which principles support my decision? Does it uphold dignity, justice, fairness and public trust?)2. Have I protected the most vulnerable?(Does efficiency come at the cost of those least able to challenge a machine’s decision? Does my decision ensure they are not left without recourse?)3. Have I kept a human accountable?(Is there a named officer who gives reasons and can be questioned? Can the affected citizen reach a human to appeal?)4. Is my decision both principled and practical?(Does it uphold ethical values without halting welfare delivery altogether? Can it be implemented, and does it trigger institutional reforms?)Technology may share the work of governance, but not its answerability. As Kautilya put it, the ruler’s welfare lies in the welfare of subjects. Efficiency is a means, and the citizen’s dignity is the end (Kant).(Refer: 1. Before AI Summit, an ethics checklist2. ‘Ethics precedes regulation’: Hugging Face’s Margaret Mitchell on why tech needs AI ethicists now)For any queries and feedback, contact raveena.baneta@indianexpress.com. Click Here to read the UPSC Essentials magazine for September 2026. Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.