Events

with Dr. Brian Levine

Friday, February 21, 2020

4:00 – 6:00 PM

Kimball Hall Lounge
246 Greene Street at Washington Place
New York, NY, 10003

Reception to follow.

RSVP

Abstract: This presentation will introduce the current state of the A.R.T. (double entendre) and critically analyze many of the arguments for and against human personhood at fertilization and thereafter. Defining how life can begin, which life can begin, and when life does begin is of paramount relevance in today’s news cycle. Participants will gain insight into how IVF works, and will learn about the flaws in much of the legislation and insurance reimbursement for practices and procedures related to personal reproductive autonomy.

The Center for Bioethics at NYU is pleased to announce its second annual undergraduate essay contest. Undergraduates from across the country are invited to submit a 2,000-2,500 word essay addressing a contemporary issue in bioethics. The winning essay(s) will be eligible for publication in the Medical Dialogue Review and win a cash prize! Essays will be judged by the faculty of the Center for Bioethics at NYU.

Submissions should be sent to nyucenterforbioethics@gmail.com by February 15th, 2020. For details, see the flyer below:

MA in Bioethics Online Information Session

Monday, February 3, 2020
12:30-1:30 PM EST

Register Now

Interested in the ethics of new technology, clinical practice, animal treatment, environmental and population issues, or neurology?

NYU’s Master of Arts degree in Bioethics is a major focus on the NYU Center for Bioethics. Based in the College of Global Public Health, the MA Program gives graduate level students the opportunity to study and explore a broad conception of bioethics, encompassing both medical and environmental ethics.

Join us for an online information session, hosted by Director S. Matthew Liao, with current faculty and students for an overview of the program curriculum and activities at the Center, as well as an opportunity to have any questions answered about the program or the admissions and financial aid processes.

 

Meet the other panelists

Link to original page

November 1st, 2019, 10:00 – 11:30 AM

Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall
Milstein East
Cambridge, MA 02138

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is delighted to welcome the President of Germany, Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to campus for a special event on November 1 to discuss the Ethics of the Digital Transformation.

President Steinmeier will participate in an interactive panel session on the ethical, legal, and societal implications of digital technologies across geographies and as viewed from different disciplines. The discussion is moderated by Urs Gasser, Executive Director of the Berkman Klein Center and Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School, and will include a Q&A.

In addition to the German President, the following experts will join the open dialogue:

• Jeanette Hofmann, Director of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Professor of Internet Politics, Free University of Berlin
• Matthew Liao, Director of the Center for Bioethics, Arthur Zitrin Professor of Bioethics, New York University
• Melissa Nobles, Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Professor of Political Science, MIT
• Wolfgang Schulz, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institute, Professor for Media Law and Public Law, University of Hamburg
• Eva Weber-Guskar, Guest Professor for Philosophy, Humboldt University of Berlin
• Crystal S. Yang, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

This special event, which will be webcast live on this page on November 1 at 10:00am, is part of the Berkman Klein Center’s Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative.

Friday, December 6, 2019; 4:00 – 6:00 PM
GCASL, 238 Thompson St, Room 288
New York, NY, 10012

RSVP

Abstract: It is intuitively plausible to think that persons who are adversely affected by the use of machine learning systems have, amongst other things, a right to normative justification: a right to be given good reasons why the deployment of machine learning systems for a particular task is morally permissible, all things considered. But what are the normative foundations of this right, and what does justification in this context entail? One central challenge is that machine learning systems are (partially) opaque. This may constitute a hard explainability constraint: in some cases, it may be impossible to explain why particular outcomes occur, and whether a given ML system is doing what it is supposed to be doing, and in the way that it is supposed to be doing it.

If explanation (and thus, explainability) is necessary—albeit not sufficient—for normative justification in this context, what does this imply for the right to justification? One possible response is to adopt a conditional account of the right to normative justification: persons have a right to justification only if explanation is possible. But the conditional solution seems intuitively unappealing because it lets potentially culpable agents off the hook rather easily.

Alternatively, one might reject the higher-order claim that justification requires explaining why and how particular outcomes occur in the context of machine learning systems. Several possible views are compatible with that move: on the one hand, one might substitute the explanation requirement by a significantly weaker one, such as ex post transparency. Yet this option is not without normative costs. On the other hand, one might argue that persons have a right to justification irrespective of the presence of a hard explainability constraint. This move implies a demanding view of justification—but is it too demanding?

A third possible strategy is to argue that there is both a right to explanation and an independent right to normative justification. This view differs from (1) and (2), neither of which are committed to the view that there is a right to explanation. If persons have a right to explanation which is not derivative of the right to justification, this raises the question whether explanation without justification is morally valuable. This is not obvious: we need to investigate which kinds of morally weighty interests, if any, justify the conferral of the right to explanation. Aside from articulating the independent normative sources of the right to explanation, defenders of this view would need to show who bears the correlative duty of explanation, since the set of agents who bear this duty might be significantly different from the set of agents who bear a duty of justification. This paper systematically assesses the normative implications of these three views.