Topic: The Ethical/Responsible use of Artificial Intelligence 

Sometimes, when people or organizations use AI in a way that leads to harm, it can be hard to locate an individual human who's responsible. Suppose, for instance, that an AI-powered self-driving car fails to detect a pedestrian and hits him. Is this some human programmer's fault? Does the fault lie with businesspeople, legislators, or consumers? Or might there simply be no one at all who's really to blame for the harm to the pedestrian? Some philosophers have argued that increased use of AI will lead to an increase in responsibility gaps: cases in which no individual bears responsibility for harm to the degree that seems appropriate. In this session, we'll consider some arguments for and against the possibility of AI-driven responsibility gaps, and we'll consider some possible strategies for mitigating those gaps.

Speaker
James Fritz
Virginia Commonwealth University
James Fritz is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. His award-winning writing discusses a wide range of questions in ethics, epistemology, emotion, and the philosophy of artificial intelligence. His work has been published in venues including Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, Oxford Studies in Metaethics, and Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics. Dr. Fritz is particularly passionate about teaching philosophy; he is also the founder and lead instructor for the VCU Summer Camp in Philosophy, a weeklong introduction to philosophy for high schoolers.

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