By Gavin Mackintosh-
An Oxford University lecturer has been given a grant to jointly pursue a three research project with other academics at the university.
Professors Tasioiulas (pictured) will work jointly with Professor Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science at Yale University. The three- project will take a humanistic approach to the ethics of Artificial Intelligence, asking curious questions that pits its advance technological might against some human right considerations.
The project explores whether the age of AI has created the need for new human rights, and whether AI-based tools can be developed to facilitate more authentically participatory forms of democracy?
The exact amount of the grant has not yet been revealed, but it is expected to sustain a comprehensive three year project on artificial intelligence.
Intelligence in all its forms and manifestations has always been a wonder to humans, and an expression of brilliance and expertise in solving problems and advancing mankind. Artificial intelligence is one of the most advanced form of technological advancement of modern day, and its benefits will always be explored.
Artificial intelligence is a constellation of many different technologies working together to enable machines to sense, comprehend, act, and learn with human-like levels of intelligence.
It includes perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by non-human animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech recognition, computer vision, translation between (natural) languages, as well as other mappings of inputs.
Other forms of its applications include advanced web search engines (e.g., Google Search), recommendation systems (used by YouTube, Amazon and Netflix), understanding human speech (such as Siri and Alexa), self-driving cars (e.g., Waymo), automated decision-making and competing at the highest level in strategic game systems (such as chess and Go)
It also inquires into questions of whether there should be a right to decisions being taken by humans in certain domains
The researchers hope to enhance our collective understanding of ethics on the distinctive value and capabilities of human beings, drawing on methods of inquiry in the humanities. They are convinced the development of a humanistic ethic to serve as a counterweight to the dominance of data-driven and quantitative conceptions of ethics in the AI field.
AI2050 is a programme at Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, that aims to support exceptional people working on key opportunities and solutions to hard problems that are critical to ensure society benefits from AI.
A key part of their research will engaging with the ways in which developments of AI relate to these two core values; its ultimate aim being to improve societal understanding of how the emergence of AI-driven technology can be integrated within a culture of democracy and human rights, making AI a servant rather than a threat to human dignity and well-being.
Professor Tasioulas said: ‘It is a great honour to receive this award. Developments in AI technology raise urgent and profound ethical questions about what it is to respect and advance human dignity in an era in which many complex human tasks are increasingly capable of being performed by machines.
‘The grant will enable us to give sustained attention to this question and to bring outstanding younger scholars into this exciting new field. I am especially delighted to be doing this work together with Professor Landemore whose advocacy of more radically participatory forms of democracy attuned to contemporary technological realities is truly inspirational.’
Professor Landemore said: ‘I’m honored and grateful to be collaborating with Professor Tasioulas, who convinced me early on of the urgency for humanists to define and defend a vision for an ethical AI and who has been the driving force behind this project. Like John, I believe ethics must be understood in a non-purely individualist and moral sense and broadened so as to encompass collective, political questions. Ethical AI will also likely be a more democratic AI. I’m excited to contribute my expertise in democratic theory and democratic innovations to our joint endeavour.’