Open Source to Empire: Can AI ever be an ethical actor?

Listen to the episode on all good podcast providers: it can be found here on Apple.

Ever since the Hal 3000 supercomputer in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ went rogue, the public has worried about the practical and ethical implications of a new race of intelligent machines. Can a computer, that doesn’t know what a person really is, really be trusted to make ethical decisions in high-moral-implication sectors, such as healthcare and crime & justice? Machine learning may be able to accurately predict what I might be interested in watching next on Netflix, but can we trust AI to pick who I might want to be friends with, or even love?

That’s what I want to discuss with our guest, Joe Parker. We talk about the effect that technology is having on young people on this podcast so much that I thought that I’d better finally speak to one. Joe is a student and a Zoomer (Gen Z). His undergraduate degree was in Philosophy and Politics at the University of Southampton, and he is currently pursuing a Master’s in ‘Legal and Political Theory’ at UCL, where his dissertation focuses on AI ethics and its impact on individual behaviour and our ability to act.

Produced by the Bloomsbury Institute London.