New technologies, especially those based on artificial intelligence (AI), develop at rapid speed. In fact, AI increasingly executes tasks that previously only humans could do, such as communicating freely with others (e.g. Alexa), driving cars, performing complicated medical tasks, firing guns as part of autonomous weapon system, or even selecting job applicants. What is more, AI increasingly outperforms humans: on average, AI is the better driver and in some domains of medical diagnosis, drug development, and the execution of treatment and surgery, AI already is, or soon promises to be, better than trained medical professionals. However, despite great promise, there are also risks and costs associated with these new technologies, leading to intricate ethical, social, and political questions. This conference will feature some of these questions, with a particular focus on questions related to autonomy and responsibility.

The conference will take place in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford on 27–28 June. It is an in-person event. Participation is limited to the restricted capacity of the premises.

This conference is organised by Maximilian Kiener, a Leverhulme early career fellow at the University of Oxford. It is sponsored jointly by the Leverhulme Trust, the Roots of Responsibility ERC project, and the Society for Applied Philosophy.

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Schedule

Day 1 (Monday, 27th June)

09.15 Welcome

09.30 — 11.00 Mark Cockelbergh (University of Vienna): Responsible citizenship, AI, and epistemic agency

11.00 — 11.30 Coffee Break

11.30 — 13.00 Maximilian Kiener (University of Oxford): AI and the Ubiquity of Responsibility

13.00 — 14.00 Lunch Break

14.00 — 15.30 Sven Nyholm (Utrecht University): AI, Responsibility Gaps, and Asymmetries between the Good and the Bad

15.30 — 16.00 Coffee Break

16.00 — 17.30 Geoff Keeling (Google): Ethical considerations for using AI generated synthetic characters to treat geriatric loneliness.

18.45 Conference Dinner at Balliol College

Day 2 (Tuesday, 28th June)

09.30 — 11.00 Rafaela Hillerbrand (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology): How machines can make us more human. A perspective from Care ethics

11.00 — 11.30 Coffee Break

11.30 — 13.00 Shannon Vallor (University of Edinburgh): AI and the Imperative of Responsibility: Reconceiving AI Governance as Social Care.

13.00 — 14.00 Lunch Break

14.00 — 15.30 Judith Simon (University of Hamburg): Inquiring trustworthy AI: Can we trust AI — and should we?

15.30 — 16.00 Coffee Break

16.00 — 17–00 Summative roundtable discussion