Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

Friday, October 14 – Saturday, October 15 2016

New York University

On October 14-15, 2016, the NYU Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness in conjunction with the NYU Center for Bioethics hosted a conference on “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”.

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) makes questions about the ethics of AI more pressing than ever. Existing AI systems already raise numerous ethical issues: for example, machine classification systems raise questions about privacy and bias. AI systems in the near-term future raise many more issues: for example, autonomous vehicles and autonomous weapons raise questions about safety and moral responsibility. AI systems in the long-term future raise more issues in turn: for example, human-level artificial general intelligence systems raise questions about the moral status of the systems themselves.

This conference will explore these questions about the ethics of artificial intelligence and a number of other questions, including:

What ethical principles should AI researchers follow?
Are there restrictions on the ethical use of AI?
What is the best way to design AI that aligns with human values?
Is it possible or desirable to build moral principles into AI systems?
When AI systems cause benefits or harm, who is morally responsible?
Are AI systems themselves potential objects of moral concern?
What moral framework and value system is best used to assess the impact of AI?

PARTICIPANTS:

Speakers and panelists:

Peter Asaro (The New School, Media Studies), John Basl (Northeastern University, Philosophy), Nick Bostrom (University of Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute), Meia Chita-Tegmark (Future of Life Institute), Kate Devlin (Goldsmiths College, University of London, Computer Science), Vasant Dhar (NYU Data Science, Stern), Virginia Dignum (Delft University of Technology, Technology, Policy and Management), Mara Garza (UC Riverside, Philosophy), Daniel Kahneman (Princeton, Psychology), Adam Kolber (Brooklyn Law), Yann LeCun (Facebook, NYU Data Science), S. Matthew Liao (NYU, Bioethics), Gary Marcus (NYU, Psychology), Steve Petersen (Niagara University, Philosophy), Francesca Rossi (IBM, University of Padova), Stuart Russell (UC Berkeley, Computer Science), Ronald Sandler (Northeastern University, Philosophy), Jürgen Schmidhuber (IDSIA, AI), Susan Schneider (University of Connecticut, Philosophy), Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside, Philosophy), Jaan Tallinn (CSER), Max Tegmark (Future of Life Institute), Wendell Wallach (Yale, Bioethics), Stephen Wolfram (Wolfram Research), and Eliezer Yudkowsky (Machine Intelligence Research Institute).

Organizers: Ned Block (NYU, Philosophy), David Chalmers (NYU, Philosophy), S. Matthew Liao (NYU, Bioethics)

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE AND LOCATION:

On Friday October 14, 2016 the conference will be held at the Eisner and Lubin Auditorium on the fourth floor of the NYU Kimmel Center (60 Washington Square South). The overflow rooms (with live streaming) will be Kimmel 405/406 and Kimmel 905/907. On Saturday October 15, the conference will be held at the NYU Cantor Film Center (36 E 8th St), Room 200 (the main theater on the second floor). The overflow room will be Cantor 101. Sessions will run from about 9:30am to 6pm on both days, with registration beforehand (beginning at 8:30). A program with abstracts is here.
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Inquiries to: consciousness@nyu.edu