About the Event
As AI systems become increasingly cognitively sophisticated, agentic, and socially integrated, some people are beginning to wonder whether they could ever have needs of their own or be worthy of our moral consideration. In this talk Winnie Street and Geoff Keeling will address this burgeoning societal discussion, arguing that the potential welfare of AI systems is, in principle, empirically investigable and laying out some fundamental considerations for the development of this new scientific paradigm. Questions explored will include: What is the potential welfare candidate? On what basis could AI systems be considered welfare subjects? What might be ‘good’ for an AI? And how viable or beneficial are near-term AI welfare interventions? This talk will integrate perspectives from philosophy, computer science and social science to chart new ground and identify critical areas for further research in a rapidly evolving domain.
About the Speakers
Winnie Street is a Senior Researcher on the Google Paradigms of Intelligence Team and a fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, University of London. Her research combines philosophical and empirical approaches to questions of AI cognition, consciousness and moral status, and their implications for AI ethics and safety. She previously worked as a software developer, and researched human-computer interaction problems at the intersection of privacy, trust and ambient computing.
Geoff Keeling is a Staff Research Scientist and philosopher at Google. He works on the ethical and societal impacts of artificial general intelligence including questions about alignment, consciousness, manipulation, trust, and human-AI relationships. Prior to Google, Geoff was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University, where he had a joint appointment between the Institute for Human-Centered AI and the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society.
This event is co-sponsored by the NYU Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness and the NYU Center for Bioethics.