About Digital Ethics Forum

This initiative was launched on May 1st, 2019, with the support of UCL Grand Challenges. Senior members of UCL presented:

Prof. Joanna Chataway (Head of Department STEaPP)

Thinking about ethical dimensions about technology policy has sometimes framed technology as neutral. The challenge has therefore sometimes been framed as being one of using good judgment and evidence to use technologies. When it comes to the development of policy to guide their use, similar logic has applied. STEaPP research and policy engagement aims to go beyond that logic exploring how social and physical technologies are co-created and the role that public policy plays in that co-creation.

Prof. John Shawe-Taylor (Director, Centre for Computational Statistics and Machine Learning)

AI is revealing things we think about ourselves. The intelligence of the machine may be more advanced than that of humans – so what distinguishes us from machines? We need to know this in order to think about ethics, i.e. what are we predicting and protecting by engaging in digital ethics. Indeed, life and the world at large is unfair – perhaps AI highlights this and forces us to think again about these notions

Prof. Piet Eeckhout (Dean of Laws)

There is a need for a ‘Generalist academic’, who can look more broadly at law and ethics. This is a call for Interdisciplinary: lawyers can bring this to the forum by not just looking at law as instrumental. Not just to tell you what the law it. UCL lawyers are interested in these legal ambiguities concerning AI (for example in automation and notions of equality).

Prof. Geraint Rees (Dean of Life Sciences and Pro-Vice-Provost – Artificial Intelligence)

UCL has considerable strengths; Our exceptional and broad disciplines, our commitment and competence in interdisciplinary, our strength in foundational AI and Massive Data Analysis, and we are committed to impacting. All of this suggests we can make the whole greater than the parts.