ai ethics Archives

Oxford Union invites an AI to debate the ethics of its own existence

The Oxford Union, the debating society of the University of Oxford, invited an artificial intelligence to debate the ethics surrounding its own existence earlier in December. The results? Troubling.

The AI in question was the Megatron Transformer, a supervised learning tool developed by the applied deep research team at NVIDIA, based on earlier work by Google.

Trained on real-world data, the Megatron has knowledge of the whole of Wikipedia, 63 million English news...

16 December 2021 | Artificial Intelligence

MEPs back AI mass surveillance ban for the EU

MEPs from the European Parliament have adopted a resolution in favour of banning AI-powered mass surveillance and facial recognition in public spaces.

With a 71 vote majority, MEPs sided with Petar Vitanov’s report that argued AI must not be allowed to encroach on fundamental rights.

An S&D party member, Vitanov pointed out that AI has not yet proven to be a wholly reliable tool on its own.

He cited examples of individuals being denied social benefits...

7 October 2021 | Ethics & Society

White House will take a ‘hands-off’ approach to AI regulation

The White House has decided it will take a ‘hands-off’ approach to AI regulation despite many experts calling for safe and ethical standards to be set. Some of the world’s greatest minds have expressed concern about the development of AI without regulations — including the likes of Elon Musk, and the late Stephen Hawking. Musk famously said unregulated AI could post “the biggest risk we face as a civilisation”, while Hawking similarly warned “the development of full...

11 May 2018 | Ethics & Society

#MWC18: Taking responsibility for AI

A session here at MWC 2018 titled ‘AI Everywhere: Ethics and Responsibility’ explored some of the questions we should be asking ourselves as the ethical minefield of AI development progresses. Dr Paula Boddington, a researcher and philosopher from Oxford University, wrote the book ‘Towards a Code of Ethics for Artificial Intelligence’ and led today’s proceedings. She claims to embrace technological progress but wants to ensure all potential impacts of developments have been...

27 February 2018 | Ethics & Society

Consumers believe AI should be held to a ‘Blade Runner’ law

A study conducted by SYZYGY titled Sex, lies and AI: How the British public feels about artificial intelligence’ has revealed the extent to which consumers expect AI to be regulated. Blade Runner 2049 is now in cinemas with its futuristic vision which, as you’d expect, features artificial intelligence. The original Blade Runner film released in 1982 envisioned what felt like a distant future but the new film has elements which now don’t seem that far away. Like many similar films...