The computing field is currently experiencing an image crisis. In 2017, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan described Silicon Valley executives as “moral Martians who operate on some weird new postmodern ethical wavelength” [4]. Niall Ferguson—a historian at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution—defined cyberspace as “cyberia, a dark and lawless realm where malevolent actors range” [7]. The following year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff declared that a “crisis of trust” affects data privacy and cybersecurity.
Many people view this situation as a crisis of ethics. In October 2018, The New York Times reported that “some think chief ethics officers could help technology companies navigate political and social questions” [6]. Numerous academic institutions are hurriedly launching new courses on computing, ethics, and society. Others are taking broader initiatives and integrating ethics across their computing curricula. The ongoing narrative implies that (i) a deficit of ethics ails the modern technology community and (ii) an injection of ethics is the remedy.
The prospect of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence (AI), which has marched from milestone to milestone over the past decade, is of specific concern. In recent years, many challenging problems—such as machine vision and natural language processing—have proven amenable to machine learning (ML) in general and deep learning in particular. Growing concerns about AI have only intensified the ethics narrative. For example, the Vatican’s Rome Call for AI Ethics has found support with a myriad of organizations, including tech companies. Multiple tech companies are also involved with the Partnership on AI, which was established “to study and formulate best practices on AI technologies, to advance the public’s understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society” [5]. Facebook (now Meta) has donated millions of U.S. dollars to establish a new Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence at the Technical University of Munich, since “ensuring the responsible and thoughtful use of AI is foundational to everything we do” [1]. Google announced that it “is committed to making progress in the responsible development of AI.”
Continue reading: https://sinews.siam.org/Details-Page/artificial-intelligence-ethics-versus-public-policy
Many people view this situation as a crisis of ethics. In October 2018, The New York Times reported that “some think chief ethics officers could help technology companies navigate political and social questions” [6]. Numerous academic institutions are hurriedly launching new courses on computing, ethics, and society. Others are taking broader initiatives and integrating ethics across their computing curricula. The ongoing narrative implies that (i) a deficit of ethics ails the modern technology community and (ii) an injection of ethics is the remedy.
The prospect of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence (AI), which has marched from milestone to milestone over the past decade, is of specific concern. In recent years, many challenging problems—such as machine vision and natural language processing—have proven amenable to machine learning (ML) in general and deep learning in particular. Growing concerns about AI have only intensified the ethics narrative. For example, the Vatican’s Rome Call for AI Ethics has found support with a myriad of organizations, including tech companies. Multiple tech companies are also involved with the Partnership on AI, which was established “to study and formulate best practices on AI technologies, to advance the public’s understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society” [5]. Facebook (now Meta) has donated millions of U.S. dollars to establish a new Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence at the Technical University of Munich, since “ensuring the responsible and thoughtful use of AI is foundational to everything we do” [1]. Google announced that it “is committed to making progress in the responsible development of AI.”
Continue reading: https://sinews.siam.org/Details-Page/artificial-intelligence-ethics-versus-public-policy
