Course Description
INF3102H — Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the use of “Big Data”, embodied in impressively powerful “second-wave” AI technologies, have led to increasingly ubiquitous deployment of AI systems across all spheres of contemporary life, and provoked intense analysis and critique throughout academic literature and public media. This seminar explores the burgeoning literature on the ethical and critical dimensions of these new AI developments—including normative, social, political, and technical perspectives. As well as looking at several recent real-life cases of the use and abuse of AI, the seminar examines a variety of general conceptual assumptions and models relevant to AI, including: models of AI underlying proposals for AI regulation and governance; preconceptions about the nature of meaning and mechanism endemic in computer science; divisions of responsibility between algorithm and data; divisions of responsibility among designers, systems, and users; etc. Focal topics include: privacy, transparency, fairness, security, value alignment, categorization, and power asymmetries in socio-AI ecosystems.