Our weekly Seminar Series welcomes Shannon Vallor, Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute at the University of Edinburgh, where she is also appointed as a professor in the Department of Philosophy.
Vallor’s work investigates how human character is being transformed by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, new social media, surveillance, and biomedical technologies. Her writings have appeared in journals such as Ethics and Information Technology, Philosophy & Technology, and Techne, and her 2016 book, Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting, is published by Oxford University Press.
This event is co-sponsored by the Centre for Advancing Responsible and Ethical Artificial Intelligence (CARE-AI) at the University of Guelph.
Talk title
“The digital basanos: AI and the virtue and violence of truth-telling”
Abstract
In ancient Greece, the basanos or touchstone had multiple meanings: a literal stone that tests the authenticity of gold by revealing its characteristic mark upon striking it, or metaphorically, a moral test of the authenticity of a life or a ruler. It also referred to a method of extracting truthful testimony by means of torture; specifically, of non-Greek slaves. The basanos thus embodies the interweaving of truth-telling with virtue, violence, and power in Western moral, political, and technical thought. In this talk I explore how contemporary uses of AI and data science have retraced and reconstituted the basanos in myriad ways, while also revealing a critical opportunity for the invention of new, more just and sustainable means of truth-telling.
Recommended readings
K. W. Bowyer, M. King, W. Scheirer, K. Vangara. 2020. “The ‘Criminality from Face’ Illusion.” https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.03895
P. DuBois. 1991. Torture and Truth. Routledge.
M. Foucault. 2011. The Courage of Truth. Palgrave MacMillan.
R. Richardson, J. Schultz and K. Crawford. 2019. “Dirty Data, Bad Predictions: How Civil Rights Violations Impact Police Data, Predictive Policing Systems, and Justice.” 94 N.Y.U. L. REV. ONLINE 192. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3333423
L. Rhue. 2018. “Racial Influence on Automated Perceptions of Emotions.”
V. Naryanan et al. 2020. “ProxEmo: Gait Based Emotion Learning and Multi-View Proxemic Fusion for Socially-Aware Robot Navigation.” arXiv:2003.01062
About Shannon Vallor
Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence and Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures in the Edinburgh Futures Institute at the University of Edinburgh, where she is also appointed as Professor in the Department of Philosophy. Professor Vallor's research explores how emerging technologies reshape human moral and intellectual character, and maps the ethical challenges and opportunities posed by new uses of data and artificial intelligence. Her work includes advising academia, government and industry on the ethical design and use of AI, and she is a former Visiting Researcher and AI Ethicist at Google. She is the author of Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (Oxford University Press, 2016) and editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology. She is the recipient of multiple awards for teaching, scholarship and public engagement, including the 2015 World Technology Award in Ethics.
About the SRI Seminar Series
The SRI Seminar Series brings together the Schwartz Reisman community and beyond for a robust exchange of ideas that advance scholarship at the intersection of technology and society. Seminars are led by a leading or emerging scholar and feature extensive discussion.
Each week, a featured speaker will present for 45 minutes, followed by 45 minutes of discussion. Registered attendees will be emailed a Zoom link approximately one hour before the event begins. The event will be recorded and posted online.
Shannon Vallor