The aim of this project is to examine how the frameworks we currently use to think about responsibility towards others—including concepts such as harm, wrongdoing, fault, causation, redress, and blame—apply in a world where artificial intelligence technologies (AI) play a major role in making decisions, evaluating choices, and determining courses of action. Much of the evaluative apparatus we use to think about wrongdoing, responsibility and redress assume that decisions are made by human actors embedded in social and institutional contexts.
The rise of AI—and, in particular, autonomous and semi-autonomous systems—challenges this assumption, and raises serious issues in relation to the adequacy of frameworks based on it. How, for example, do we deal with an AI that displays predilections which, in a human, would be racist—as studies in the US suggest some predictive systems used in making parole decisions are actually doing? In technical terms, how do we create systems to detect and monitor such behaviour? In ethical terms, are categories such as ‘racism’ useful ways of thinking about stochastic decision-making processes that differ fundamentally from evaluative processes in humans? In legal terms, how do we translate these into the language of legal rules and doctrines, and deal with their relationship with existing legal frameworks?
Similar issues also arise in relation to how we think about redress. There are a range of frameworks—prophylactic, risk management, harm mitigation, laissez-faire, externalities-oriented, etc.—that one might use for thinking about the problem of redressing harm caused by AI wrongdoing. Yet there has been no systematic study of which of these we should use, on what basis we should choose between them, what their strengths and weaknesses are, or what challenges might be posed in adapting legal frameworks to deal with AI.
The proposed project will assemble an interdisciplinary team—computer scientists, ethicists, philosophers, lawyers, criminologists, and sociologists—to develop a programme for innovative, high-impact, funded research on this issue.
Lead Academic at Lead University
Phillip MorganYork Law School, University of York
Lead Academics at Other Universities
Vincent MüllerInterdisciplinary Ethics Applied Centre, University of Leeds
Helen KennedyDepartment of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield
Other members of Staff Associated with this Project
TT Arvind York Law School, University of York
John McDermid OBEDepartment of Computer Science/AAIP, University of York
Ailbhe O’LoughlinYork Law School, University of York
David BeerDepartment of Sociology, University of York
Alex HallDepartment of Politics, University of York
Ibrahim HabliDepartment of Computer Science/AAIP, University of York
Isra BlackYork Law School, University of York
David EfirdDepartment of Philosophy, University of York
Zoe PorterDepartment of Philosophy, University of York
Cade McCallDepartment of Psychology ,University of York
Dimitris TsarapatsanisSchool of Law, University of York
Mark DavisDepartment of Sociology, University of Leeds
Jamie DowInterdisciplinary Ethics Applied Centre, University of Leeds
Chris MegoneInterdisciplinary Ethics Applied Centre, University of Leeds
Carl FoxInterdisciplinary Ethics Applied Centre, University of Leeds
Vania DimitrovaDepartment of Computer Science, University of Leeds
Rob RichardsonDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds
Xavier D L’HoiryDepartment of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield
Gwilym PryceSheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield
James Law Sheffield Robotics, University of Sheffield
Nathan HughesDepartment of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield
Mauricio ÁlvarezDepartment of Computer Science, University of Sheffield
Noel SharkeyDepartment of Computer Science, University of Sheffield
Amanda SharkeyDepartment of Computer Science, University of Sheffield
Keith FrankishDepartment of Philosophy, University of Sheffield
Paul Martin, iHumanDepartment of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield
Stevienna de Saille, iHuman Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield
Ross BellabyDepartment of Politics, University of Sheffield
Dan GoodleySchool of Education, University of Sheffield
Annamaria CarusiDepartment of Infection, Immunity & Cardiovascular Disease, University of Sheffield
Michael SzollosySheffield Robotics, University of Sheffield
Jonathan AitkenDepartment of Automatic Control & Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield,
Jo BatesInformation School, University of Sheffield