[Air-L] The ethics of artificial intelligence

[Jill Walker Rettberg]

I have been asked to contribute to my university’s response to a call from the Norwegian research ethics committee for the natural sciences and technology (NENT) – they are working on ethical guidelines for research on artificial intelligence and machine learning. I think a lot of the discussions we've had about algorithmic cultures and bias at AoIR are very relevant to this, but that this is also perhaps a more fundamental question: what sort of AI research is ethical? What should be banned? What kinds of ethical considerations should be made? 

I am familiar with the debates about algorithmic culture and bias and the many excellent recent books discussing the impact of AI/algorithms/machine learning on society, including Taina Bucher’s If-Then: Algorithmic Power and Politics, Tarleton Gillespie’s Custodians of the Internet, Safiya Noble's Algorithms of Oppression, Virginia Eubanks' Automating Inequality, etc. I also know about FAT* (Fairness, Accountability and Transparency, e.g. https://fatconference.org), and  These are fabulous and clearly relevant to the question, but I am wondering if there is something even more specific to the actual tech development and research out there - or perhaps there are already lots of examples of ethical guidelines for AI research?. There is clearly a need for it - just today I heard a computer science professor saying that they do research on the methods that underlie the systems and so ethics isn't relevant. 

I have also seen that the EU is planning to develop a strategy for AI in 2019, and that they are positioning ethical considerations as central in that, at the same time as it's ultimately about being competitive globally of course. (https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/artificial-intelligence#useful-links)

If you're in Norway and interested in the topic, see https://www.etikkom.no/Aktuelt/Nyheter/2018/ber-om-innspill-om-kunstig-intelligens - they are asking for feedback and comments from everyone until 10 September. I assume other European countries have parallel processes that will feed into the EU strategy in 2019. Perhaps the US, China and other countries already have strategies?

Jill 


Jill Walker Rettberg 
Professor of Digital Culture
University of Bergen
http://jilltxt.net