Machine Ethics
Wendell Wallach is a bioethicist and author focused on the ethics and governance of emerging technologies, in particular artificial intelligence, biotechnologies and neuroscience. Wendell is the Uehiro/Carnegie Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (CCEIA) where he co-directs (with Anja Kaspersen) the AI and Equality Initiative. He is also senior advisor to The Hastings Center and a scholar at the Yale University Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics where he chaired Technology and Ethics studies for eleven years.
Wallach’s latest book, a primer on emerging technologies, is entitled "A Dangerous Master: How to keep technology from slipping beyond our control". In addition, he co-authored (with Colin Allen) "Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong" and edited the eight volume Library of Essays on the Ethics of Emerging Technologies published by Routledge in Winter 2017. He received the World Technology Award for Ethics in 2014 and for Journalism and Media in 2015, as well as a Fulbright Research Chair at the University of Ottawa in 2015-2016.
The World Economic Forum appointed Mr. Wallach co-chair of its Global Future Council on Technology, Values, and Policy for the 2016-2018 term, and he is presently a member of their AI Council. Wendell was the lead organizer for the 1st International Congress for the Governance of AI (ICGAI).
Rebecca is a PhD candidate in Machine Ethics, and consultant in Ethical AI at Oxford Brookes University, Institute for Ethical Artificial Intelligence. Her PhD research is entitled 'Autonomous Moral Artificial Intelligence', and as a consultant she specialises in looking at developing practical approaches to embedding ethics in AI Products.
Her background is primarily philosophy. She completed her BA, then MA in philosophy at The University of Nottingham in 2010, before working in analytics for several different industries. As an undergraduate she had a keen interest in logic, metametaphysics, and the topic of consciousness, spurring her to come back into academia in 2017 to undertake a further qualification in psychology at Sheffield Hallam University, before embarking on her PhD.
She hopes she can combine her diverse interests to solving the challenge of creating moral machines.
In her spare time she can be found playing computer games, running, or trying to explore the world.
Derek Leben is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown. He works at the intersection of ethics, cognitive science, and emerging technologies. In his new book, Ethics for Robots, Leben argues for the use of a particular moral framework for designing autonomous systems based on the Contractarianism of John Rawls. He also demonstrates how this framework can be productively applied to autonomous vehicles, medical technologies, and weapons systems. Follow on Twitter: @EthicsForRobots.
Michael Anderson, professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Hartford, earned his Ph.D. in computer science and engineering at the University of Connecticut. Susan Leigh Anderson, professor emerita of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, earned her Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. They have been instrumental in establishing machine ethics as a bona fide field of study, co-chairing/authoring the AAAI Fall 2005 Symposium on Machine Ethics, a IEEE Intelligent Systems special issue on machine ethics, and an invited article for Artificial Intelligence Magazine on the topic. Further, their research in machine ethics was selected for Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence as an emerging application in 2006. Scientific American (Oct. 2010) features an invited article on their research in which the first robot whose behavior is guided by an ethical principle is debuted. They have published "Machine Ethics" with Cambridge University Press (2011).
UWE Professor of Robot Ethics - Engineer, roboethicist and pro-feminist. Interested in robots as working models of life, evolution, intelligence and culture.
Links:
Alan's blog
EPSC principles of robotics
Robotics: A Very Short Introduction
