Ethical Machines

CONCLUSION

Two Surprises

If you told me you were going to a conference on AI ethics, and that at a cocktail reception, you walked up to a group of attendees already discussing the topic, I could confidently tell you what was about to happen.

First, you’re going to hear a lot of familiar phrases and buzzwords. You’ll hear Accountability. Transparency. Explainability. Fairness. Surveillance. Governance. Trustworthy. Responsible. Stakeholders. Framework. Someone’s going to say “black box” at some point.

Then, there’ll be hand-wringing over the threats posed by AI gone wild. Biased data sets! Unexplainable algorithms! Invasions of privacy! Self-driving cars killing people!

Finally, the group will land on a healthy skepticism. “You can’t really ...