ARLTSIG - Reading group: The ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence

 Registration is closed for this event

For the next ALT ARLT SIG Reading group, we’ll discuss AI bias and its ethical implications.
• The reading group will be held Tuesday, June 13, 2-3:30 p.m. online.
• Registration is required and the maximum number of participants is 15.
• Registration is open to ALT Members only (you will need to log in to register)
• Please engage with the two key texts below before attending – additional texts are also listed for those who wish to explore further.
• Discussion questions follow the reading list below.

Key texts
Leslie, D. (2020) Understanding bias in facial recognition technologies: An explainer. The Alan Turing Institute. [Accessed 27 March 2023].
This report provides a primer on the technical dimension of facial detection technologies, explains the factors that lead to biases in their design and deployment, and examines wider ethical issues surrounding their design and use.

Aguera ya Arcas, Blaise. (2022) Can machines learn how to behave? Medium.com. [Accessed 27 March 2023].
This discussion of AI language models and ethics includes the perspectives of many writers and theorists. If you find it too lengthy, you can just focus on the introduction and final two sections: “an inclusive foundation” and “AI ethics”.

Additional (optional) texts

Cave, S and Dihal, K. (2020) The whiteness of AI. Philosophy & Technology 33: 685-703. [Accessed 27 March, 2023].
This paper focus on the fact that AI is predominantly portrayed as white in colour and ethnicity and then examines the potential consequences of the racialisation of AI. (open access)

Coded Bias (2021) [Video] Brooklyn, NY, USA. 7th Empire Media.
This 90-minute feature film follows MIT Media Lab Researcher Joy Buolamwin, who discovers that facial recognition software does not see dark-skinned faces accurately and then lobbies for the first-ever U.S. legislation against bias in algorithms that impact us all. (requires Netflix subscription or licence via your library’s collection)

Discussion questions

1. “Should we be doing this to begin with?...Do technologists and innovators in this space stand on solid moral ground in flooding society with…capacities to globally automate unbounded personal identification and ubiquitous smart surveillance?” (Leslie, 19-20)
2. “Who gets to define AI’s values, and how much scope will these have for personal or cultural variation?” (Aguera y Arcas)
3. What are the implications of the ethical concerns covered in the key texts for our professional contexts, such as HE and FE institutions in the UK? On staff? On students?

When
13 Jun 2023 from  2:00 PM to  3:30 PM
Location
Online
United Kingdom