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In the Wake of Fake News, Several Universities Including MIT and Harvard Introduce New Course On Ethics and Regulation of AI (nytimes.com)

Posted by msmash on from the before-it's-too-late dept.

The medical profession has an ethic: First, do no harm. Silicon Valley has an ethos: Build it first and ask for forgiveness later. Now, in the wake of fake news and other troubles at tech companies, universities that helped produce some of Silicon Valley's top technologists are hustling to bring a more medicine-like morality to computer science, the New York Times reporter. From the report: This semester, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are jointly offering a new course on the ethics and regulation of artificial intelligence. The University of Texas at Austin just introduced a course titled "Ethical Foundations of Computer Science" -- with the idea of eventually requiring it for all computer science majors. And at Stanford University, the academic heart of the industry, three professors and a research fellow are developing a computer science ethics course for next year. They hope several hundred students will enroll. The idea is to train the next generation of technologists and policymakers to consider the ramifications of innovations -- like autonomous weapons or self-driving cars -- before those products go on sale.

12 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Obvious question by grasshoppa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Has it even been proven that "fake news" is really an issue? I saw the shenanigans that Russia got up to on facebook and have a hard time believing that influenced anyone to vote differently than they otherwise might have.

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    1. Re:Obvious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I saw the shenanigans that Russia got up to on facebook and have a hard time believing that influenced anyone to vote differently than they otherwise might have.

      They didn't influence anything. It's pure scapegoating and deflection by the losers. The republicans were ready to do the same if they had lost. This whole "fake news" shtick is nothing more than the quest for control of mass media in its confrontation with an open internet

    2. Re:Obvious question by grasshoppa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Speaking of obvious, until you can definitely prove that "shenanigans" did not influence who was or is elected leader of one of the most powerful countries on the planet, you have no grounds to say that fake news isn't an issue.

      That's not how it works at all. If you want to change the status quo, you have to prove your position ( that being that fake news has significant influence ). Of course, the more you research this the more you realize it's not necessarily "fake news" that has the media in an uproar, it's more along the lines of "not our brand of dog food" fake news. It's all fine and dandy when it's fox or cnn doing it, but some uncontrolled actor? Sharpen the pitchfork and pull out your torches!

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    3. Re:Obvious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Seriously, who marked this -1? I'm a conservative, but this is entirely true. Remember Trump and his claims of "hacking the election" when he thought he'd lose and the Dems claiming that our election couldn't be hacked? That was the Rs bracing for scapegoating. The reason why the whole thing is funny for those of us with a memory longer than a gold fish is that it was the Rs preping with "ther election were haxor'd!!!!!!" when they thought they were going to fail with the D's claiming it was impossible, with the positions perfectly swapping the second the results came in, and watching all the partisan hacks running around trying to justify "their sides" when the swap came. Yes, Ds, you're pathetic. And yes, Rs, you're pathetic.

    4. Re:Obvious question by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Now normally this is just a slap in the wrist type of violation, because we were electing a president not a CIO.

      Well, no. If any random Federal employee had done that with classified emails, he'd have been fired, as a minimum, and quite likely sent to jail. The government takes mishandling of classified documents seriously....

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    5. Re:Obvious question by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You're the one making the claim that has to be defended. You're saying that this new stream of disinformation has no effect. In general, disinformation is a tried and true technique with a long history of success, so it's on you to demonstrate why this particular form of it is ineffectual.

      Now, if someone comes along and claims that the Russian disinformation did change the election outcome, then it's on them to support their claim. But the claim that it might have follows logically from the fact that disinformation has often been effective in other contexts.

      And given the stakes here, I'd argue that it behooves us to assume that social media disinformation campaigns are a threat to the integrity of our democratic process and take steps to remedy them. Unless someone can satisfactorily prove that they aren't.

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    6. Re:Obvious question by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well if you looked at the pooling,

      Polls have systematic biases. For instance, Democrats are more willing to participate in polls.

    7. Re:Obvious question by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The DNC rigged the primary to put up literally the only person in the US who could lose against Donald Trump.

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    8. Re:Obvious question by chispito · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're the one making the claim that has to be defended. You're saying that this new stream of disinformation has no effect.

      How can somebody disprove an effect if nobody is able to describe or quantify it?

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  2. Really? by argStyopa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do they have an "Ethics in Physics" class required for people who might design nuclear weapons?

    Or an "Ethics in Chemistry" for those who might design mundane explosives or chemical weapons?

    Or an "Ethics in Biomedical Engineering" for those who may eventually build killer cyborgs?

    Yes, I'm saying this is silly.
    Ethics is ethics, and if you're going to REQUIRE it, require it of everyone - I think our entire culture could use a good shot of ethics.

    --
    -Styopa
  3. Wrong Target by tsqr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You don't need to teach ethics to CS majors. You need to teach ethics to Business majors.

  4. Re:Soooo... by Zmobie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm confused myself. It has been about seven years since I graduated, but all engineering students at my university were required to take an ethics course then already (Pretty sure all ABET accredited degrees require some form of ethics). It covered both legal implications/liability and the actual moral side and importance of being responsible when doing any type of work in the field. We even discussed in depth the societal implications and impact several engineering disciplines can have on society (including Computer Science). Hell I remember at least a few times where the professor brought up the medical ethics saying precisely telling us that should always be kept in mind. My university may have been/still is one of the top CS programs for us normal people (top 50 ranking), but I would think places like MIT/Stanford/UT Austin would have had this a looooooooooooong time ago.