Ethical Issues in AI

A course offered at Chautauqua Institution

John Hooker, Study leader

12:30 – 2:00 pm
1-5 July 2024
Hultquist 201A

Course description Study leader bio

Course Outline

Click the links to view or download slides (as pdf files) used in class.

	Slides	Topics
Module 1	Introduction	Course objectives
Module 2	What is AI?	Essence of AI; AI hype; Beneath the hype; AI technologies; ML is not magic; Overfitting; Trial and error
Module 3	Why ethics?	Ethics as a negotiation tool; Ethics and religion; Ethics and rationality; Facts and values
Module 4	Ethical principles	Basic assumptions; Generalization principle; Human decision making; Utilitarian principle; Autonomy principle
Module 5	A classic case study	Ford Pinto; Ethical analysis
Module 6	Self-driving cars	The future of cars; AVs on the road; The Moral Machine and value alignment
Module 7	Content moderation	Recommender systems; Case study: Inciting violence; Case study: Impact on young people
Module 8	Bias in AI systems	Example: Mortgage decisions; What to do about bias? Assessing bias metrics
Module 9	Online privacy	Surveillance; Privacy and utility; Privacy and generalizability; Privacy and culture; Privacy and autonomy
Module 10	Generative AI	Language models; Generative adversarial networks; ChatGPT etc.; Ethics of GPTs
Module 11	AI and intellectual property	Plagiarism; Intellectual property; Natural property rights; Ethical analysis of IP; Movement away from IP
Module 12	Technological unemployment	Future of employment; Wealth distribution; Worker ownership; Augmentation; A firm’s ethical dilemma
Module 13	Robots as agents	Autonomous robots; Duties to machines; Duties of machines; Robot masters? Responsibility; Living with machines; Robots vs androids; Robots as agents