Ethics in Artificial Intelligence—CSC484

Waves of novel AI applications are coming to our world. These range from the phenomenally powerful and useful (self-driving cars) to the outright terrifying (automated fake news). In this course we will use the algorithmic thinking and logic we are all comfortable with as computer scientists to explore many aspects of ethical dilemmas facing us as this modern computational paradigm unfolds around us.

Organization: This course is primarily based on the lectures, the readings and on extensive online discussion. There may be some light programming / use of AI tools as we become familiar with the technology. There may be a writing component as we use AI writing collaborators. The class is asynchronous, so you can work ahead by following the study guides and quizzes, but online discussions will tend to follow a progressive schedule. There will be optional informal Zoom meetings most weeks where we discuss these fascinating topics.

To ground our discussions we will examine several common ethical theories at the beginning of class.

Grading: The focus of the class is on covering a wide range of ethical topics through lecture modules andassociated quizzes. There will be a proctored final exam and possibly a proctored midterm.

Have some fun here with a few interesting ethical problems in AI:

• Fake News: With automated text generation, novel faces created from scratch, fake audio added to altered videos... watch out!

• Cyborg Humans: Computer-brain interfaces are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Do we implant our children / soldiers / workers so they can compete in this hyper-evolutionary process?

• The China Brain & Sentience: Human brains are purely computational devices, except not. Wait... what? Hard problems in ethics and AI. ←Fun!

• Compassionate Companions: There is a huge industry push to create artificial companions, in particular for the elderly. But this rasises intersting ethical choices. For example, who owns the relationship between a robot and a human?

• Unintentially racially- and gender-biased AI: Modern AI is really good at capturing existing patterns and generating novel instances of it, perpetuating existing systemic biases.

• The replication crisis in AI: Because of the intense hardware demands, many of the leading AI research centers are developed and supported by industry. The best science requires making algorithms, platforms and data available for replications, and deep analysis by the community of scholars. But industry maintains a proprietary interest in their investments, and also has a right to industrial secrets. How do we address this challenge?

• AI in the military: Truly autonomous killing machines will have advantages in the battlefield. If we ever invent true artificial choice, do we give these devices choice over the life and death of humans? If we don't, but our enemies do, now what?

• AI for Airport Security and Lie Detection: An interactive AI Avatar reports 80-85% acurracy in detecting lies, which is better than most humans (reported 54%). What if you have "just one of those faces" that the AI Avatar keeps selecting as suspicious, or your face reflects your chronic pain? How do you seek redress when the algorithms are secret?

• Face detection: Hoan Ton-That's company Clearview AI has created an App that let's you upload a picture of someone and get back photos of that person posted on the Internet, along with links to the sources. More than 600 law enforcement agencies reportedly already use this technology. When paired with augmented-reality glasses, this potentially allows the wearer to get real-time biographies of strangers on the street. What are the implications for stalkers, and blackmailers?

• Human memory transfer via electronic means may not be as far off as we think. What are the implications for privay and individuality?

• Artificial Sentience: What do we do if we stumble upon artificial life and sentience? This opens Pandora's box in the realm of ethical behavior for humans in the (coming?) future.

• Basic Ethics: A flash visit with two ethical frameworks: Utilitarianism and Kant.