In 1951, Alan Turing predicted the eventual loss of human control over machines that exceed human capabilities. I will argue that Turing was right to express concern but wrong to think that doom is inevitable. Instead, we need to develop a new kind of AI that is provably beneficial to humans. I will describe an approach -- assistance games -- that seems promising. On the horizon, however, are a number of open questions, some of them familiar to moral philosophers and government regulators and some of them new.
A joint event with the Philosophy, Law & Politics Colloquium Series, funded by the Hewlett Foundation and the Institute for Ethics in AI Colloquium Series.
Registration will be open soon.
The Institute for Ethics in AI will bring together world-leading philosophers and other experts in the humanities with the technical developers and users of AI in academia, business and government. The ethics and governance of AI is an exceptionally vibrant area of research at Oxford and the Institute is an opportunity to take a bold leap forward from this platform.
Every day brings more examples of the ethical challenges posed by AI, from face recognition to voter profiling, brain-machine interfaces to weaponised drones, and the ongoing discourse about how AI will impact employment on a global scale. This is urgent and important work that we intend to promote internationally as well as embedding in our own research and teaching here at Oxford.
