Category: By topic

AI, human rights, democracy and the rule of law: A primer prepared for the Council of Europe

Josh Cowls

The purpose of this primer, co-produced by The Alan Turing Institute and the Council of Europe, is to introduce the main concepts and principles presented in the Council of Europe’s Ad Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence Feasibility Study for a general, non-technical audience.

I am a co-author, with David Leslie, Chris Burr, Mhairi Aitken, Mike Katell, and Morgan Briggs, of a primer produced for the Council of Europe. The document sets out, for a general audience, the ethical and political considerations that should inform a potential legal framework for the design, development and deployment of AI systems, with a focus on safeguarding human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Constitutional Metaphors: Facebook’s ‘Supreme Court’ and Platform Legitimation

Josh Cowls

In our paper, we trace the increasing popularity of constitutional metaphors among private platforms to show how these metaphors obscure rather than elucidate the position of private decision-making bodies in society.

With co-authors Philipp Darius, Dominiquo Santistevan and Moritz Schramm, I presented this paper earlier today at the First Annual Conference of The Platform Governance Research Network.

Digital phenotyping and sensitive health data: Implications for data governance

Josh Cowls

Mobile and wearable devices, such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, increasingly enable the continuous collection of physiological and behavioral data that permit inferences about users’ physical and mental health. Growing consumer adoption of these technologies has reduced the cost of generating clinically meaningful data. This can help reduce medical research costs and aid large-scale studies. However, the collection, processing, and storage of data comes with significant ethical, security, and data governance considerations. Here, we use the emerging concept of “digital phenotyping” to highlight key lessons for data governance that draw on parallels with the history of genomics research, while highlighting areas in which digital phenotyping will require novel governance frameworks.

A new paper in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association by Ignacio Perez-Pozuelo,  Dimitris Spathis,  Jordan Gifford-Moore,  Jessica Morley and myself has just been published.

The ethics of algorithms: key problems and solutions

Josh Cowls

Research on the ethics of algorithms has grown substantially over the past decade. This article builds on a review of the ethics of algorithms published in 2016 … to contribute to the debate on the identification and analysis of the ethical implications of algorithms, to provide an updated analysis of epistemic and normative concerns, and to offer actionable guidance for the governance of the design, development and deployment of algorithms.

A new paper written by Andreas Tsamados, Nikita Aggarwal, myself, Jessica Morley, Huw Roberts, Mariarosaria Taddeo and Luciano Floridi has recently been published in AI and Society.

A definition, benchmark and database of AI for social good initiatives

Josh Cowls

Initiatives relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver socially beneficial outcomes—AI for social good (AI4SG)—are on the rise. However, existing attempts to understand and foster AI4SG initiatives have so far been limited by the lack of normative analyses and a shortage of empirical evidence. In this Perspective, we address these limitations by providing a definition of AI4SG and by advocating the use of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a benchmark for tracing the scope and spread of AI4SG.

A new “perspective” paper by myself, Andreas Tsamados, Mariarosaria Taddeo and Luciano Floridi has recently been published in Nature: Machine Intelligence.

Public Health in the Information Age: Recognizing the Infosphere as a Social Determinant of Health

Josh Cowls

Since 2016, social media companies and news providers have come under pressure to tackle the spread of political mis-and disinformation (MDI) online. However, despite evidence that online health MDI (on the web, on social media, and within mobile apps) also has negative real-world effects, there has been a lack of comparable action by either online service providers or state-sponsored public health bodies. We argue that this is problematic and seek to answer three questions: why has so little been done to control the flow of, and exposure to, health MDI online; how might more robust action be justified; and what specific, newly justified actions are needed to curb the flow of, and exposure to, online health MDI?

A new paper written by Jessica Morley, myself, Rosaria Taddeo and Luciano Floridi has now been published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

The Ethics of AI in Health Care: a Mapping Review

Josh Cowls

This article presents a mapping review of the literature concerning the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care. The goal of this review is to summarise current debates and identify open questions for future research. Our goal is to inform policymakers, regulators and developers of what they must consider if they are to enable health and care systems to capitalise on the dual advantage of ethical AI; maximising the opportunities to cut costs, improve care, and improve the efficiency of health and care systems, whilst proactively avoiding the potential harms.

I am a co-author on a new paper written with Jessica Morley, Caio Machado, Chris Burr, Indra Joshi, Rosaria Taddeo and Luciano Floridi, now published in Social Science and Medicine.

The Chinese approach to artificial intelligence: an analysis of policy, ethics, and regulation

Josh Cowls

 

In this article, we focus on the socio-political background and policy debates that are shaping China’s AI strategy. In particular, we analyse the main strategic areas in which China is investing in AI and the concurrent ethical debates that are delimiting its use. By focusing on the policy backdrop, we seek to provide a more comprehensive and critical understanding of China’s AI policy by bringing together debates and analyses of a wide array of policy documents.

A new paper by Huw Roberts, myself, Jess Morley, Vincent Wang, Rosaria Taddeo and Luciano Floridi has been published in AI & Society.

Ethical guidelines for COVID-19 tracing apps

Josh Cowls

Here we set out 16 questions to assess whether — and to what extent — a contact-tracing app is ethically justifiable. These questions could assist governments, public-health agencies and providers [and] will also help watchdogs and others to scrutinize such technologies.

A comment piece by colleagues Jessica Morley, Rosaria Taddeo, Luciano Floridi and myself was recently published in Nature.