What Do We Need to Understand About Ethics?

Abstract

AI promises a smarter world – a world where finance algorithms analyze data better than humans, self-driving cars save millions of lives from accidents, and medical robots eradicate disease. But machines aren’t perfect. Whether an automated trading agent buys the wrong stock, a self-driving car hits a pedestrian, or a medical robot misses a cancerous tumor – machines will make mistakes that severely impact human lives. Paula Boddington, a philosopher based in the Department of Computer Science at Oxford, argues that AI’s power for good and bad makes it crucial that researchers consider the ethical importance of their work at every turn. To encourage this, she is taking steps to lay the groundwork for a code of AI research ethics.