  The prevailing discourse around AI ethics lacks the language and formalism
necessary to capture the diverse ethical concerns that emerge when AI systems
interact with individuals. Drawing on Sen and Nussbaum's capability approach,
we present a framework formalizing a network of ethical concepts and
entitlements necessary for AI systems to confer meaningful benefit or
assistance to stakeholders. Such systems enhance stakeholders' ability to
advance their life plans and well-being while upholding their fundamental
rights. We characterize two necessary conditions for morally permissible
interactions between AI systems and those impacted by their functioning, and
two sufficient conditions for realizing the ideal of meaningful benefit. We
then contrast this ideal with several salient failure modes, namely, forms of
social interactions that constitute unjustified paternalism, coercion,
deception, exploitation and domination. The proliferation of incidents
involving AI in high-stakes domains underscores the gravity of these issues and
the imperative to take an ethics-led approach to AI systems from their
inception.
