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Symposium on Humane Artificial Intelligence
The Challenges of Cultural and Ethical Diversity in Aligning Technology and Human Values
September 7-10, 2019
IMIN Conference Center
East-West Center, Honolulu, HI USA
This symposium is part of an intercultural, intergenerational, and interdisciplinary East-West Center (EWC) initiative aimed at engaging the societal challenges and opportunities that are emerging with advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning and big data. The purposes of the initiative are: to establish an ongoing forum for exploring differences in understanding the goal of aligning artificial intelligence with human values and societal wellbeing; to foster globally-shared commitments to equitable and humane artificial intelligence; and, to engage emerging perspectives on the evolving interplay of people, artificial intelligence, and related technologies.
The symposium will combine plenary lectures, thematically-framed small group discussions, and cooperative futures brainstorming in a spirit of thoughtful conviviality. In response to the complexity of the issues raised by artificial intelligence—socially, economically and politically, as well as ethically—and in keeping with EWC commitments to the value of diversity, applications to participate in the symposium are welcomed from within academic, scientific, business, policy-making, activist and artistic/expressive communities.
Symposium Rationale
At gatherings of scientists, technologists, engineers and entrepreneurs working at the leading edges of artificial intelligence development, there is widespread and palpable excitement about facing the intellectual and practical challenges of opening, exploring and profitably exploiting new realms of technological possibility. At gatherings of more skeptically inclined philosophers, professional ethicists and futurists, concerns are often raised about the moral hazards of adventuring in these realms, including the threats that artificial superintelligence might pose to human existence.
The core premise of this symposium is that there exist deepening imperatives: 1] to entertain both the bright and dark futures of the intelligence revolution; and 2] to grapple ethically with differences in what are regarded as positive and negative uses and consequences (both intended and unintended) of big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
With a nod toward the original Greek meaning of the term “symposium”—a gathering of drinking partners—our aim is to open a convivial space for thought leaders, senior academics, postdocs, graduate students, and practitioners to table cultural, national, and regional differences in understanding the meanings-of and means-to equitable and humane AI. The symposium’s aim is to begin appreciating these differences, not as gaps of understanding to be overcome, but rather as resources, going beyond making choices among competing sets of ostensibly universal/common human values to undertake the much harder ethical labor of engendering shared values of the kind required to resolve predicaments that reach across cultural, national and regional boundaries.
Five hundred years ago, the Copernican Revolution radically decentered humanity’s place in the cosmos, not just physically, but metaphysically, shattering foundational certainties and opening in the process entirely new spaces of opportunity. Today, we are in the early stages of a new revolution—emerging out of advances in big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence—which may well prove to be even more momentous. This Intelligence Revolution is likewise shattering foundational certainties, opening new spaces of opportunity, and decentering humanity in the process. But it is not doing so only physically, or even metaphysically. It is decentering humanity ethically.
For the first time, the shape of the human-technology-world relationship is no longer humanity’s sole responsibility. Technology is no longer a passive medium through which humanity actively revises what it means to be human and redefines the world of human experience. Technology is now an active participant in that human-technology-world relationship. Machine autonomy is not yet equivalent to human autonomy and may never reach that level. But machine agencies are already rapidly evolving, and not always in ways that are fully explicable. The ethical challenges posed by the Intelligence Revolution are, quite literally, unprecedented.
Seen from the technical side, bringing ethics to bear on the development of artificial intelligence is often understood as a matter of computationally achieving acceptable levels of transparency and accountability, assuring compliance with existing laws and regulatory frameworks, and ensuring machine respect, in operational or behavioral terms, for currently accepted societal norms. Concern is focused on developing the tools and techniques needed to engage in the exciting technical and scientific work ahead.
Seen from the ethical side, however, the development of artificial intelligence and machine agencies is forcing confrontation with needs to rethink existing ethical intuitions and norms, and also to consider how technological change will affect the human experience in ways that are potentially at once both benign and malign. Concern here is often directed toward addressing competing conceptions of personal and societal wellbeing, and taking into critical account the differential impacts of technology-driven structural and institutional transformation. Yet, as machine agencies and smart services become more and more fully integral to the workings of human societies, they will be in positions to affect those societies in ways that cannot be readily anticipated, and also to do so in ways that may be in greatly differing degrees of moral or cultural tension with existing societal norms.
Today, divisive gulfs of different qualities and depths are already growing between the approaches to “ethical” or “human-centered” artificial intelligence that are being taken in the United States, China and the European Union. Sharply opposing perspectives are evident, for example, about the importance of data privacy and net neutrality. But potentially deeper divides are almost certain to characterize broader discussions about aligning artificial intelligence with human values and societal wellbeing, including differences regarding the relative weights that should be accorded to individual, corporate and state interests. This symposium is being hosted to establish as an evolving forum for productively and creatively exploring such differences.
Draft Schedule
Please find the draft symposium schedule here.
Dialogue Partner Bios and AI Stances
Please find the short biographies of the Dialogue Partners and their AI stances here.
How To Apply
Applications to join the symposium as substantive dialogue partners are closed as the submission deadline passed on May 20, 2019.
Please include a current bio, short, 5-page CV and short responses (maximum 400 words) to the questions:
- What do you see as the challenges of conceptualizing and/or operationalizing Humane AI?
- How do you see yourself contributing distinctively to meeting those challenges?
Applicant responses to these questions will be used to organize small group discussions.
Provisions
Those accepted as symposium dialogue partners will receive:
- lodging in the EWC guesthouse, Lincoln Hall
- travel stipend for up to $800 USD
- All participants are invited to an opening reception and final dinner on the EWC campus.
Deliverables
All dialogue partners are expected to attend and participate in all symposium sessions and produce a 3-4 page write-up on how to proceed with meeting the goals of the initiative/symposium.
Symposium on Humane Artificial Intelligence
The Challenges of Cultural and Ethical Diversity in Aligning Technology and Human Values
September 7-10, 2019
IMIN Conference Center
East-West Center, Honolulu, HI USA
This symposium is part of an intercultural, intergenerational, and interdisciplinary East-West Center (EWC) initiative aimed at engaging the societal challenges and opportunities that are emerging with advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning and big data. The purposes of the initiative are: to establish an ongoing forum for exploring differences in understanding the goal of aligning artificial intelligence with human values and societal wellbeing; to foster globally-shared commitments to equitable and humane artificial intelligence; and, to engage emerging perspectives on the evolving interplay of people, artificial intelligence, and related technologies.
The symposium will combine plenary lectures, thematically-framed small group discussions, and cooperative futures brainstorming in a spirit of thoughtful conviviality. In response to the complexity of the issues raised by artificial intelligence—socially, economically and politically, as well as ethically—and in keeping with EWC commitments to the value of diversity, applications to participate in the symposium are welcomed from within academic, scientific, business, policy-making, activist and artistic/expressive communities.
Symposium Rationale
At gatherings of scientists, technologists, engineers and entrepreneurs working at the leading edges of artificial intelligence development, there is widespread and palpable excitement about facing the intellectual and practical challenges of opening, exploring and profitably exploiting new realms of technological possibility. At gatherings of more skeptically inclined philosophers, professional ethicists and futurists, concerns are often raised about the moral hazards of adventuring in these realms, including the threats that artificial superintelligence might pose to human existence.
The core premise of this symposium is that there exist deepening imperatives: 1] to entertain both the bright and dark futures of the intelligence revolution; and 2] to grapple ethically with differences in what are regarded as positive and negative uses and consequences (both intended and unintended) of big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
With a nod toward the original Greek meaning of the term “symposium”—a gathering of drinking partners—our aim is to open a convivial space for thought leaders, senior academics, postdocs, graduate students, and practitioners to table cultural, national, and regional differences in understanding the meanings-of and means-to equitable and humane AI. The symposium’s aim is to begin appreciating these differences, not as gaps of understanding to be overcome, but rather as resources, going beyond making choices among competing sets of ostensibly universal/common human values to undertake the much harder ethical labor of engendering shared values of the kind required to resolve predicaments that reach across cultural, national and regional boundaries.
Five hundred years ago, the Copernican Revolution radically decentered humanity’s place in the cosmos, not just physically, but metaphysically, shattering foundational certainties and opening in the process entirely new spaces of opportunity. Today, we are in the early stages of a new revolution—emerging out of advances in big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence—which may well prove to be even more momentous. This Intelligence Revolution is likewise shattering foundational certainties, opening new spaces of opportunity, and decentering humanity in the process. But it is not doing so only physically, or even metaphysically. It is decentering humanity ethically.
For the first time, the shape of the human-technology-world relationship is no longer humanity’s sole responsibility. Technology is no longer a passive medium through which humanity actively revises what it means to be human and redefines the world of human experience. Technology is now an active participant in that human-technology-world relationship. Machine autonomy is not yet equivalent to human autonomy and may never reach that level. But machine agencies are already rapidly evolving, and not always in ways that are fully explicable. The ethical challenges posed by the Intelligence Revolution are, quite literally, unprecedented.
Seen from the technical side, bringing ethics to bear on the development of artificial intelligence is often understood as a matter of computationally achieving acceptable levels of transparency and accountability, assuring compliance with existing laws and regulatory frameworks, and ensuring machine respect, in operational or behavioral terms, for currently accepted societal norms. Concern is focused on developing the tools and techniques needed to engage in the exciting technical and scientific work ahead.
Seen from the ethical side, however, the development of artificial intelligence and machine agencies is forcing confrontation with needs to rethink existing ethical intuitions and norms, and also to consider how technological change will affect the human experience in ways that are potentially at once both benign and malign. Concern here is often directed toward addressing competing conceptions of personal and societal wellbeing, and taking into critical account the differential impacts of technology-driven structural and institutional transformation. Yet, as machine agencies and smart services become more and more fully integral to the workings of human societies, they will be in positions to affect those societies in ways that cannot be readily anticipated, and also to do so in ways that may be in greatly differing degrees of moral or cultural tension with existing societal norms.
Today, divisive gulfs of different qualities and depths are already growing between the approaches to “ethical” or “human-centered” artificial intelligence that are being taken in the United States, China and the European Union. Sharply opposing perspectives are evident, for example, about the importance of data privacy and net neutrality. But potentially deeper divides are almost certain to characterize broader discussions about aligning artificial intelligence with human values and societal wellbeing, including differences regarding the relative weights that should be accorded to individual, corporate and state interests. This symposium is being hosted to establish as an evolving forum for productively and creatively exploring such differences.
Draft Schedule
Please find the draft symposium schedule here.
Dialogue Partner Bios and AI Stances
Please find the short biographies of the Dialogue Partners and their AI stances here.
How To Apply
Applications to join the symposium as substantive dialogue partners are closed as the submission deadline passed on May 20, 2019.
Please include a current bio, short, 5-page CV and short responses (maximum 400 words) to the questions:
- What do you see as the challenges of conceptualizing and/or operationalizing Humane AI?
- How do you see yourself contributing distinctively to meeting those challenges?
Applicant responses to these questions will be used to organize small group discussions.
Provisions
Those accepted as symposium dialogue partners will receive:
- lodging in the EWC guesthouse, Lincoln Hall
- travel stipend for up to $800 USD
- All participants are invited to an opening reception and final dinner on the EWC campus.
Deliverables
All dialogue partners are expected to attend and participate in all symposium sessions and produce a 3-4 page write-up on how to proceed with meeting the goals of the initiative/symposium.