AI Ethics - From Philosophy to Ethics to Law to Technology and Back – Thoughts on Current European State Of The Art

Artificial intelligence is an ancient dream of humanity. It started as a myth, developed via mechanical calculating automata, leading to formalization of reasoning envisaged by Leibniz and his idea of universal formalized knowledge. This formalization project in logics mathematics and computing lead finally to the first electronic computers. Today’s great success of machine (deep) learning is the next essential step closer to truly intelligent machinery. It is paired with advances of cyber-physical systems which help intelligent programs directly act in the world. This combination of high-level intelligence, interacting with the physical world, learning, reasoning and making autonomous decisions, is a very new phenomenon in human history. We are still trying to find out what it will mean for societies and individuals. We would like to enjoy the benefits of AI and avoid its challenges and dangers. One of the first technologies essentially building on AI are automated cars with increasing levels of autonomy. Here the intelligent cyber-physical machine will be “in command”. How can we trust them? How can we assure they will do only what is good for us? Who will be responsible for the development, implementation and maintenance of intelligent technology? Prompted by the quick development of AI in recent years, and many alarming scenarios discussed by leading philosophers, ethicists and representatives of biggest companies developing AI technologies – number of initiatives developed on different levels all over the world: AI policies, guides, recommendations, and declarations. Ethical debate is currently going very strong. At the same time there is legislative trying to catch up with technologies, such as GDPR in Europe. It is very important that we have both ethical consensus and the legal side ready as more and more advanced AI technology gets implemented. This talk will present the state of the art of the debate starting from the philosophy, ethics, technology and back, from a European perspective.

About the speaker

Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic is Professor of Interaction Design at Chalmers University of Technology and Professor in Computer Science at Mälardalen University. She holds PhD degrees in Physics and Computer Science. Her main research project, supported by Swedish Research Council, on Morphological Computing in Cognitive Systems, addresses modelling cognition as natural computation. She is contributing to the research in the fields of the Study of Information as well as Information Ethics and Ethics of Technology, with focus on AI. She has long record of teaching, among others courses in Ethics, Theory of Science and Computability. She published books Investigations into Information Semantics and Ethics of Computing, (2006), Information and Computation Nets (2009) and four edited volumes (2017, 2011, 2013, 2017 and 2019) with Springer and World Scientific, with further edited volume on the study of information, to appear shortly whit World Scientific. She is past President of the International Society for the Study of Information, member of the editorial board of the World Scientific Series in Information Studies and Springer SAPERE series, and a member of the editorial board of several journals. Currently she is working together with Marcin Schröder on Special Issue of the journal Philosophies on Contemporary Natural Philosophy. 

About AI ETHICS at Chalmers
A series of seminars highlighting ethical perspectives of artificial intelligence. The series will feature invited speakers and Chalmers researchers with the aim of cultivating an informed discussion on ethical issues. The seminars are organised by the AI Ethics Committee  within Chalmers AI Research Centre (CHAIR).

Day & time: Tuesday February 25, 13:15-14:15
Place: Chalmers, Gothenburg

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