Events

Ethics, social values and artificial intelligence

Date : July 11th 2018

Place : European Science Open Forum (Toulouse)

When designing autonomous machines embedded with artificial intelligence, the integrated design of ethical safeguards can be difficult. One way may be to consider human values that are at stake in the machines behaviour, and identify when those values are promoted or infringed. In artificial intelligence, the notion of human values is left to the end-users discretion with respect to the targeted application. The reason is that human values are abstract concepts from philosophy, social sciences and psychology while computer science needs explicit formal definitions. While some works tried to define what should be general values for intelligent systems, modelling those values remains a key issue. This highly interactive session will put the audience in an ethical designers shoes, and let it experience the difficulties of designing with values. As an example, social networks moderation is important due to the presence of racist, sexist or illegal content, or to fight bullying. However, automated moderation may also forbid and constrain freedom of speech. The audience will be asked to design of a moderation procedure in terms of social values, identify situations when those values could be conflicting, and find ways to deal with them.

Autonomous machines: what are the ethical issues?

Date : July 10th 2018

Place : European Science Open Forum (Toulouse)

Machines can now automatically learn new skills (pattern recognition, game playing, car driving, etc.) and make efficient decisions in increasingly complex situations. Search engines, self-driving cars, electronic markets, smart homes, military technology, software for big data analysis, and care robots are just a few examples. As the scope of those autonomous machines' activities broadens, it is imperative to ensure that such systems will not make irrelevant, counter-productive or even dangerous decisions. The issue is all the more important as autonomous machines embedded with artificial intelligence and deep learning encounter new situations, evolve in open environments, interact with other agents based on different design principles, act on behalf of human beings and share common resources. This interactive round table focuses on the question: what ethical issues are raised by the use of autonomous machines?

International Workshop on Ethics in the Design of Intelligent Agents

Date : August 30th 2016

Place : World Forum The Hague (held by ECAI 2016)

The development of Artificial Intelligence is experiencing a fruitful period of incredible progress and innovation. After decades of notable successes and disappointing failures, AI is now poised to emerge in the public sphere and completely transform human society, altering how we work, how we interact with each other and our environments, and how we perceive the world. Search engines, self-driving cars, electronic markets, smart homes, military technology, software for big data analysis, and care robots are just a few examples. As intelligent agents gain increased autonomy in their functioning, human supervision by operators or users decreases. As the scope of the agents’ activities broadens, it is imperative to ensure that such socio-technical systems will not make irrelevant, counter-productive, or even dangerous decisions. Even if regulation and control mechanisms are designed to ensure sound and consistent behaviors at the agent, multi-agent, and human-agent level, ethical issues are likely to remain quite complex, implicating a wide variety of human values, moral questions, and ethical principles. This workshop focuses on two questions: (1) what kind of formal organizations, norms, policy models, and logical frameworks can be proposed to deal with the control of agents' autonomous behaviors in a moral way?; and (2) what does it mean to be responsible designers of intelligent agents?

Journée Éthique et Intelligence Artificielle (in French)

Date : July 1st 2015

Place : INRIA Research Center in Rennes (held by PFIA 2015)

The autonomous decision capability embedded in software or robot agents is one of the major issues of Artificial Intelligence. It is a core property for AI applications such as e-commerce, serious games, ambient computing, social or collective robotics, companion robots, unmanned vehicles. Autonomous agents decide and act in a given context or environment and under domain constraints, and possibly interact with other agents or human beings e.g. to share tasks or to execute tasks on behalf of others. As machines and agents have more and more autonomous functions and consequently are less and less supervised by human operators or users, we need to ensure that they do not harm them or threaten their autonomy, especially their decision autonomy. Consequently regulation and control mechanisms to ensure sound and consistent behaviours at the agent’s individual level, at the multi-agent level, and within the human-agent system are a major issue. Moreover, the ethical regulation or control of such autonomous agents has been discussed by several authors. As stated by Rosalind Picard, the greater the freedom of a machine, the more it will need moral standards. Organisation models, conversation policies, normative systems, constraints, logical frameworks address the problem of how agents’ autonomous behaviours should be controlled, paving the way for formal or pragmatic definitions of agents’ Rights, Duties and Ethics. The issue is all the more important as autonomous agents may encounter new situations, evolve in open environments, interact with agents based on different design principles, act on behalf of human beings and share common resources. For instance: should an autonomous agent take over the control from a human operator? under which circumstances? The aim of this workshop is to promote discussions and exchanges on the different ethical issues raised by Artificiel Intelligence.

After this event, the consortium members co-organized as individuals the next meetings in 2017 and 2018.

Questions d'éthique et de robotique : enjeux et perspectives (in French)

Date : February 27th 2015

Place : Cantine numérique rennaise

This public event aims at presenting issues and perspectives concerning ethics and robotics.