- Wed, Sep 30, 2020
Ethics at Noon
Simon Stern, Reasonable Doubters: Cross-Examination, Detection, Mystification (Ethics@Noon)
Reasonable Doubters: Cross-Examination, Detection, Mystification
The methods of the detective and the cross-examiner can help to get at the truth, but they can also cloud the truth, creating doubt where none existed. After a brief discussion of the rise of cross-examination, in the late eighteenth century and through the nineteenth century, I will turn to a series of developments in the detective story that increasingly stressed the unreliability of evidence. These changes, accompanied by developments in forensic science, identified new ways to “de-authenticate” legitimate documents while justifying the skeptic’s questions as merely the expression of a reasonable observer’s doubts. Unlike those who freely attach the label of “fake news” to whatever they disagree with, the reasonable doubter makes a show of adhering to proof standards – but the results may be equally dangerous.
This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, September 30. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Simon Stern
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
Law & English
University of Toronto
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Sep 30, 2020
Ethics of Songs, Race|Ethics|Power
George Elliott Clarke on "Ride On, King Jesus" (Ethics of Songs)
Join us for The Ethics of Songs, the Centre for Ethics YouTube series that explores the ethical dimensions of songs familiar and new! (The full schedule is available here.)
► please register here
George Elliott Clarke
Poet / Professor
University of TorontoThis is an online event, available on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
03:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Thu, Oct 1, 2020
Critical Race Studies, Race|Ethics|Power
Christine Yao, The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling: Considering Race and Affect From Below (Critical Race Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives)
The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling: Considering Race and Affect From Below
Dominant cultural fantasies of justice still depend upon reformed models of sympathy to recognize minoritized feelings. What if we considered unfeeling not as a strategy from above, but as a tactic from below? In my forthcoming book Disaffected: The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth Century America (Duke University Press) I take an antisocial approach to affect theory. According to theorist Denise Ferreira da Silva, “affectability” is constructed as the intrinsic property of non-white others. Drawing from queer of colour critique, I refuse the usual move to recuperate unfeeling as legible feeling; instead I stress how unfeeling indexes disaffection in the political, causal, and affective senses. Unfeeling is a means of survival and a catalyst for the emergence of alternative structures of feeling. For my talk I will discuss Oriental inscrutability as a queer, racialized mode of unfeeling in its potential for what I call insurgent counterintimacies with the intertwined struggles of Black and Indigenous peoples. By discussing writings by early Black nationalist Martin R. Delany and the first Asian North American woman writer Edith Maude Eaton/Sui Sin Far, I hope to model how Asian diasporic settlers like myself should refuse the colonial politics of recognition toward the hard work of BIPOC solidarity.
This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Thursday, October 1. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics. For information on the Centre for Ethics, including upcoming events, visit ethics.utoronto.ca.
Christine Yao
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
English
University College London
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Fri, Oct 2, 2020
C4E Flash Event, Ethics of AI in Context
To Surveil and Predict: A Human Rights Analysis of Algorithmic Policing in Canada (Ethics of AI in Context)
To Surveil and Predict: A Human Rights Analysis of Algorithmic Policing in Canada
A collaboration between the International Human Rights Program and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, To Surveil and Predict: A Human Rights Analysis of Algorithmic Policing in Canada examines algorithmic technologies that are designed for use in criminal law enforcement systems in Canada. Algorithmic policing is an area of technological development that, in theory, is designed to enable law enforcement agencies to either automate surveillance or to draw inferences through the use of mass data processing in the hopes of predicting potential criminal activity. The report finds that the use of algorithmic policing technologies by law enforcement can raise many potential constitutional and civil liberties violations under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international human rights law. In their presentation, the authors of this report discuss their findings, including what steps governments and the public in Canada should consider taking in light of human rights dangers at stake.
► please register here
This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Friday, October 2. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Kate Robertson
Markson Law
Citizen Lab Research FellowCynthia Khoo
Tekhnos Law
Citizen Lab Research FellowYolanda Song
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
Stevenson Whelton LLP
IHRP Research Associate
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Mon, Oct 5, 2020
Perspectives on Ethics
Sophie Grace Chappell, Forgiveness in Classical Greece: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Their Background Culture (Perspectives on Ethics)
Forgiveness in Classical Greece: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Their Background Culture
In the Christian tradition that we have inherited, there is a two-stranded conception of forgiveness: forgiveness is both kindness and grace about wrongdoing, and also cancellation of wrongdoing. Moreover, the focal Augustinian articulation of this tradition works with a very special (and specially problematic) conception of what the wrongdoing is that the forgiver forgives. None of these ideas are central to the classical Greek ethical tradition. Most of them are not there at all. In fact, we might plausibly say that in pagan ancient-Greek ethics there is not much evidence of any concept of forgiveness. The nearest approach is that there is some idea of gracious kindness towards those who do us wrong. But in its pagan Greek version this does not involve any contrastive narrative of moral or spiritual conversion or transformation; above all, there is in pagan Greek ethics no notion at all of the kind of wrongdoing that at least Augustinian Christianity later came to focus on.
This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Monday, October 5. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Sophie Grace Chappell
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
Philosophy
Open University
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Tue, Oct 13, 2020
Ethics of AI in Context, Race|Ethics|Power
Andre Brock, Black Morpheus: Race in the Technocultural Matrix (Ethics of AI in Context)
Black Morpheus: Race in the Technocultural Matrix
Where does Blackness manifest In the ideology of Western technoculture? Technoculture is the American mythos and ideology; a belief system powering the coercive, political, and carceral relations between culture and technology. Once enslaved, historically disenfranchised, and never deemed literate, Blackness is understood as the object of Western technical and civilizational practices. This presentation is a critical intervention for internet research and science and technology studies (STS), reorienting Western technoculture’s practices of “race-as-technology” to visualize Blackness as technological subjects rather than as “things”. Hence, Black technoculture.
This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Tuesday, October 13. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Andre Brock
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
School of Literature, Media, and Communication
Georgia Tech
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Oct 14, 2020
Ethics at Noon
Teresa Heffernan, AI, the Immortality Industry, and the Ethics of Death (Ethics@Noon)
AI, the Immortality Industry, and the Ethics of Death
This talk considers the far reaches of the multi-billion-dollar immortality industry and the money and power behind the scenes that fuels this fantasy science even as the planet teeters on the brink of collapse. After examining some contemporary fictions that challenge big tech and its paradoxical escalation of the end of all life even as it hankers after life without death in its relentless focus on a future that is always “future,” this talk then turns to archaeology and the future’s archaic longings. One of the oldest and longest surviving stories in the world, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is about a tyrannical king who wants immortality. In failing in his quest, however, Gilgamesh learns what it means to live as an ethical human being. Drawing on the lesson in this ancient epic, the talk ends with a reflection on the connection between mortality, responsibility, and freedom
This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, October 14. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Teresa Heffernan
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
St. Mary’s University
English
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Oct 14, 2020
Ethics of Songs
Rebekah Hutten on "Sorry" (Ethics of Songs)
Join us for The Ethics of Songs, the Centre for Ethics YouTube series that explores the ethical dimensions of songs familiar and new! (The full schedule is available here.)
► please register here
Rebekah Hutten
Schulich School of Music
McGill UniversityThis is an online event, available on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
03:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Mon, Oct 19, 2020
Perspectives on Ethics, Race|Ethics|Power
Denise Ferreira da Silva, Unpayable Debt (Perspectives on Ethics)
Unpayable Debt
In this talk I sketch a black feminist poethical figure with which I seek to capture how coloniality and raciality operate in Global Capital. Framed as a dialectical image, it guides a reading of the notion of value that traces the continuous operation of coloniality in the modern economic and ethical scenes. With a focus on the philosophical infrastructure of the notion of value, Unpaybable Debt exposes global capital as a juridic-economic architecture and attendant ethical grammar, in which raciality (the symbolic figuring of coloniality) justifies otherwise ethically untenable deployments of total violence that allow for the continued expropriation (of labour) and extraction (of resources) of Europe’s racial others and their lands.
This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Monday, October 19. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Denise Ferreira da Silva
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
University of British Columbia
Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Tue, Oct 20, 2020
Ethics of AI in Context, Race|Ethics|Power
Rodrigo Ochigame, Actuarialism and Racial Capitalism (Ethics of AI in Context)
Actuarialism and Racial Capitalism
As national and regional governments form expert commissions to regulate “automated decision-making,” a new corporate-sponsored field of research proposes to formalize the elusive ideal of “fairness” as a mathematical property of algorithms and especially of their outputs. Computer scientists, economists, lawyers, lobbyists, and policy reformers wish to hammer out, in advance or in place of regulation, algorithmic redefinitions of “fairness” and such legal categories as “discrimination,” “disparate impact,” and “equal opportunity.”
But general aspirations to fair algorithms have a long history. This talk recounts some past attempts to answer questions of fairness through the use of algorithms. In particular, it focuses on “actuarial” practices of individualized risk classification in private insurance
firms, consumer credit bureaus, and police departments since the late nineteenth century. The emerging debate on algorithmic fairness may be read as a response to the latest moral crisis of computationally managed racial capitalism.This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Tuesday, October 20. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Rodrigo Ochigame
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
History, Anthropology, & Science, Technology, and Society
MIT
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Thu, Oct 22, 2020
Critical Race Studies, Race|Ethics|Power
Eddie Bruce-Jones (Critical Race Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Thursday, October 22. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
Eddie Bruce-Jones
Birkbeck, University College London
Law
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Mon, Oct 26, 2020
Perspectives on Ethics
Clare Hemmings (Perspectives on Ethics)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Monday, October 26. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Clare Hemmings
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
Gender Studies
LSE
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Tue, Oct 27, 2020
Ethics of AI in Context
Karina Vold (Ethics of AI in Context)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Tuesday, October 27. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Karina Vold
Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.
University of Toronto
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Oct 28, 2020
Ethics at Noon
Lauren Bialystok (Ethics@Noon)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, October 28. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Lauren Bialystok
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
University of Toronto
Social Justice Education, OISE
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Oct 28, 2020
Ethics of Songs
Antía González Ben on "Que non mo neguen" (They Can't Deny It) (The Ethics of Songs)
Join us for The Ethics of Songs, the Centre for Ethics YouTube series that explores the ethical dimensions of songs familiar and new! (The full schedule is available here.)
► please register here
Dr. Antía González Ben
Faculty of Music
University of TorontoThis is an online event, available on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
03:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Oct 28, 2020
Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars
Vineeth S. Bhaskara (Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, October 28. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Vineeth S. Bhaskara
Applied Computing
University of Toronto
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Thu, Nov 5, 2020
Critical Race Studies, Race|Ethics|Power
Veena Dubal (Critical Race Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Thursday, November 5. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Veena Dubal
Hastings Law School
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Thu, Nov 12, 2020
Critical Race Studies, Race|Ethics|Power
Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò (Critical Race Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Thursday, November 12. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò
Georgetown University
Philosophy
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Nov 18, 2020
Ethics at Noon
Morag Kersel (Ethics@Noon)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, November 18. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Morag Kersel
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
Anthropology
DePaul University
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Thu, Nov 19, 2020
Ethics of AI in Context
Catherine D'Ignazio & Lauren Klein (Ethics of AI in Context)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Thursday, November 19. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Catherine D’Ignazio
Urban Science & Planning
Director, Data + Feminism Lab
MIT
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
Lauren Klein
English & Quantitative Theory and Methods
Director, Digital Humanities Lab
Emory University
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Mon, Nov 23, 2020
Perspectives on Ethics
Iza Hussin (Perspectives on Ethics)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Monday, November 23. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Iza Hussin
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
Cambridge University
Politics & International Studies
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Nov 25, 2020
Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars
Anne Marie Fowler (Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, November 25. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Anne Marie Fowler
Religion
University of Toronto
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Tue, Dec 1, 2020
Ethics of AI in Context
Richard Zuroff (Ethics of AI in Context)This is an online event, available on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Richard Zuroff
Element AI
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Dec 2, 2020
Ethics at Noon
Amanda Greer (Ethics@Noon)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, December 2. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Amanda Greer
12:30 PM - 01:45 PM
Cinema
University of Toronto
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Dec 9, 2020
Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars
Muriam Fancy (Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, December 9. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Muriam Fancy
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
AI Ethics Researcher
Montreal Ethics AI Institute
uOttawa
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Tue, Jan 12, 2021
Ethics of AI in Context
Robert Soden (Ethics of AI in Context)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Tuesday, January 12. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Robert Soden
Computer Science
University of Toronto
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Thu, Jan 14, 2021
Critical Race Studies, Race|Ethics|Power
Michael Dawson (Critical Race Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Thursday, January 14. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Michael Dawson
Political Science
University of Chicago
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Mon, Jan 25, 2021
Perspectives on Ethics
Loubna El Amine (Perspectives on Ethics)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Monday, January 25. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Loubna El Amine
Political Science
Northwestern University
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Tue, Jan 26, 2021
Ethics of AI in Context
Ishtiaque Ahmed (Ethics of AI in Context)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Tuesday, January 26. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Ishtiaque Ahmed
Computer Science
University of Toronto
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Jan 27, 2021
Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars
Kamilah Ebrahim (Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, January 27. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Kamilah Ebrahim
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Masters of Information, Human Centred Data Science
University of Toronto
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Mon, Feb 1, 2021
Perspectives on Ethics
Rima Basu (Perspectives on Ethics)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Monday, February 1. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Rima Basu
Philosophy
Claremont McKenna College
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Thu, Feb 4, 2021
Critical Race Studies, Race|Ethics|Power
Yolonda Wilson (Critical Race Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Thursday, February 4. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Yolonda Wilson
Philosophy
Howard University
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Tue, Feb 9, 2021
Ethics of AI in Context
Devin Guillory (The Ethics of AI in Context)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Tuesday, February 9. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Devin Guillory
Computer Science
UC Berkeley
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Thu, Feb 11, 2021
Critical Race Studies, Race|Ethics|Power
Dorothy Kim (Critical Race Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Thursday, February 11. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Dorothy Kim
English & Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Brandeis University
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Tue, Feb 23, 2021
Ethics of AI in Context
Elettra Bietti, From Ethics Washing to Ethics Bashing: Viewing Tech Ethics from Within Moral Philosophy (Ethics of AI in Context)
From Ethics Washing to Ethics Bashing: Viewing Tech Ethics from Within Moral Philosophy
The word ‘ethics’ is overused in technology policy circles. Weaponized in support of deregulation, self-regulation or hands-off governance, “ethics” is increasingly identified with technology companies’ self-regulatory efforts and with shallow appearances of ethical behavior. So-called “ethics washing” by tech companies is on the rise, prompting criticism and scrutiny from scholars and the tech community at large. In parallel to the growth of ethics washing, its condemnation has led to a tendency to engage in “ethics bashing.” This consists in the trivialization of ethics and moral philosophy now understood as discrete tools or pre-formed social structures such as ethics boards, self-governance schemes or stakeholder groups.
The misunderstandings underlying ethics bashing are at least three-fold: (a) philosophy is understood in opposition and as alternative to law, political representation and social organizing; (b) philosophy and “ethics” are seen as a formalistic methodology, vulnerable to instrumentalization and abuse, and thus ontologically flawed; and (c) engagement in moral philosophy is downplayed and portrayed as mere “ivory tower” intellectualization of complex problems that need to be dealt with through alternative and more practical methodologies.
This talk argues that the rhetoric of ethics and morality should not be reductively instrumentalized, either by the industry in the form of “ethics washing,” or by scholars and policy-makers in the form of “ethics bashing.” Grappling with the role of philosophy and ethics requires moving beyond simplification and seeing ethics as a mode of inquiry that facilitates the evaluation of competing tech policy strategies. In other words, we must resist narrow reductivism of moral philosophy as instrumentalized performance and renew our faith in its intrinsic moral value as a mode of knowledge-seeking and inquiry. Far from mandating a self-regulatory scheme or a given governance structure, moral philosophy in fact facilitates the questioning and reconsideration of any given practice, situating it within a complex web of legal, political and economic institutions. Moral philosophy indeed can shed new light on human practices by adding needed perspective, explaining the relationship between technology and other worthy goals, situating technology within the human, the social, the political.
This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Tuesday, February 23. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Elettra Bietti
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Harvard Law School
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Feb 24, 2021
Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars
Suzanne Kite and Scott Benesiinaabandan (Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, February 24. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
Suzanne Kite
Oglala Lakota Performance ArtistScott Benesiinaabandan
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Anishinabe Intermedia Artist
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Tue, Mar 9, 2021
Ethics of AI in Context
Ben Green (Ethics of AI in Context)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Tuesday, March 9. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Ben Green
Applied Mathematics
Harvard
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Mar 31, 2021
Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars
Julian Posada (Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, March 31. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Julian Posada
Faculty of Information
University of Toronto
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin - Wed, Apr 14, 2021
Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars
Noam Kolt (Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars)This is an online event. It will be live streamed on the Centre for Ethics YouTube Channel on Wednesday, April 14. Channel subscribers will receive a notification at the start of the live stream. (For other events in the series, and to subscribe, visit YouTube.com/c/CentreforEthics.)
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Noam Kolt
Law
University of Toronto
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
Where conversations about ethics happen.
