SIpEIA
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Recording of first lesson of the PhD course on Ethics and AI 04-10-2023
New Edition of the Online PhD course “Ethics and AI” organized by SIpEIA
Italian Society for the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
Humans have always used non-human animals to boost their energy, now they increasingly rely on machines that extend operational capabilities to an exceptional degree. The whole of this variegated aid is today referred to as “Artificial Intelligence” (AI), a term that includes various specialized sectors but which gives a good idea of what is happening.
The advent of AI changes some fundamental parameters of existence as it has been lived and conceived up to now. For example, after being delivered, a speech was “lost” in the sense that no trace remained except in the memory of those present. Today, each act can be recorded and maintained: while until a few decades ago it was not possible to know the movements of a subject, today these are traceable. Other examples are available, illustrating how AI disrupts some traditional arrangements of personal and social life.
This radical change has effects on the profound attitudes established in the various cultural traditions, which provide the basis of ethics understood as a normative institution capable of providing the norms followed spontaneously and by intimate grip that allow an adequate level of social coordination. The term ethics is understood here in a broad sense which also includes law and policies.
By replacing many human functions or creating new ones, AI poses ethical problems as it urges the modification of ancient values and adherence to new values. There is a need to reflect critically and without pre-established schemes on what is happening in order to find new solutions regarding the methods of moral coordination capable of guaranteeing equality and well-being for the subjects involved.
It is SIpEIA, the Italian Society for the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, as a cultural association that supports academics, scholars, operators, companies and citizens interested in the ethical problems raised by AI.