Over the past decade, research into artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged from the shadow of a long winter of disregard into a balmy summer of hope and hype. Whilst scholars and advocates have studiously documented the risks and potential harms of deploying AI-based tools and techniques in an array of societal domains, the idea nonetheless persists that the promised power of AI functionally could and ethically should be harnessed for, or at least (re-)oriented towards, ‘socially good’ purposes. The twin aims of this Special Issue, simply stated, are to interrogate the plausibility of this notion and to consider its implications.
I am pleased to say that the special issue of Philosophy & Technology that I guest edited is now available online. In my introduction I discuss the aims of the issue and provide an overview of the rich array of contributions that it includes.
Josh Cowls 