PHIL 384

PHIL 384: Ethics and Artificial Intelligence (Topics in Practical Ethics)
Instructor: Howard Nye

Course Description:

Artificial intelligence systems are revolutionizing our world, and raising many difficult ethical issues that we will explore in this course. When AI systems are used to make important decisions in such areas as medicine, employment, and the criminal justice system, how can we tell if they are discriminatory, and how can we address the fairness of these decisions? Who bears responsibility for the outcomes of AI systems, and how can we responsibly draw upon their strengths while protecting ourselves from their weaknesses? How can we address the profound impacts that AI systems are having upon our social relationships, privacy, employment and economic power relations, and political freedoms? How can we responsibly govern the use of AI systems, ensure that these systems are used in ethical ways, and prevent governments and corporations from using AI systems to wield undue power? To what extent must we worry about the possibility that in the near future AI systems themselves may become moral patients to whom we owe duties, and the existential risks of creating extremely powerful AI systems that we cannot control? Take this course if you are interested in the pressing ethical problems posed by the ways in which AI systems are radically changing our world