This month we reintroduce a friend of the APA Blog, John Tasioulas. John is the director of the Institute for Ethics in AI and has contributed several pieces on Philosophy and Technology, beginning with “The Role of the Arts and Humanities in Thinking about Artificial Intelligence” and then an interview discussing the Institute’s objectives.
The Institute is grounded in the idea that philosophy is the central discipline relative to ethics, especially in a humanistic form—one enriched by humanities disciplines such as classics, history, and literature. In his piece on AI, John stresses “the most fundamental contribution of the arts and humanities is to make vivid the fact that the development of AI is not a matter of destiny, but instead involves successive waves of highly consequential human choices”.
John, it is a privilege to feature your work again as we join you and the Institute for AI in the call for papers for the Lyceum Project: AI Ethics with Aristotle. To provide the APA philosophical community with a sense for what participants can expect, I have a few questions about the conference:
First, what inspired you to launch this project?
The main inspiration for this project is the sense that the ethics of Artificial Intelligence, although a vitally important subject-area, needs to be more closely integrated into philosophical discussions about ethics more generally. The dominant ethical templates when thinking about AI have tended to be either utilitarian or rights-based. I think the AI ethics discourse could be significantly enriched by giving greater prominence to a broadly Aristotelian perspective, one based on a rich notion of human flourishing and a non-consequentialist teleology. This could have important implications for the currently urgent question of how best to regulate AI. The idea of pursuing this project in Greece, in an inspirational setting adjacent to the ancient site of Aristotle’s school, the Lyceum, emerged largely thanks to my friendship with Alexandra Mitsotaki who is leading an impressive effort to make the Lyceum site the kind of interactive, high-tech cultural destination it deserves to be.
Second, what insights do you think will be generated?
It’s very hard to preempt what insights will be generated, so I won’t try. The key thing, I think, is that fruitful conversations will be struck up that would otherwise not have occurred, both among philosophers who are taking Aristotelian ideas seriously in the ethics of AI, but also among philosophers, computer scientists, entrepreneurs, policy experts, and ordinary citizens. We are in the very early days of the ethics of AI and we need to ensure the conversations are as wide-ranging as possible.
Lastly, as we share the call for papers below, what are you most excited about?
There will be various aspects to the event on June 20th, including a panel to be chaired by MIT’s Fotini Christia in which practitioners from the worlds of science, business, and regulation discuss how philosophical ideas bear on their activities. Inserting philosophy into this wider set of interlocutors seems to me all-important in developing an informed and practically-relevant ethics of AI. But perhaps what most excites me about this event is the opportunity to bring together a group of outstanding younger researchers from around the world who are engaging with Aristotelian themes as they grapple with the myriad ethical challenges posed by AI technology. To be able to do all this in Athens, with its rich philosophical and democratic traditions, is a remarkable privilege. I hope others will feel the same.
Call for Papers:
Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics in AI, in collaboration with Stanford University, Greece’s National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos, and the World Human Forum will hold a one-day conference on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI), ‘The Lyceum Project,’ in Athens on June 20th, 2024. The venue for the event will be the Athens Conservatory, which is adjacent to the ancient site of Aristotle’s school, the Lyceum.
The Lyceum Project is premised on the belief that Aristotelian ethics contains many compelling ideas that have great significance for the ethics of AI. These ideas include the centrality of human flourishing to ethics and democratic politics; the virtues as constitutive of flourishing; the use of reason to determine the ends and not merely the means of human conduct; and the place of friendship and citizenship in a good human life, among others. Their relevance extends to all the various forms that the regulation of AI can take, such as personal self-regulation, regulation through industry codes or social convention, or regulation through domestic or international law. Unfortunately, these ideas have tended to be neglected in contemporary thought about the ethics and politics of AI, which has often been dominated by utilitarian and rights-based paradigms. The Lyceum Project seeks to remedy this neglect and thereby to enhance the quality of public discourse around AI ethics.
The conference will involve:
- A philosophers’ panel, at which Professors Josiah Ober (Stanford) and John Tasioulas (Oxford) will discuss their white paper on Aristotelian AI ethics
- A practitioners’ panel, in which leading figures from the technical, entrepreneurial, and regulatory sides of AI discuss bridging theory and practice
- A series of presentations by younger scholars working on Aristotelian AI ethics
This call for papers invites scholars working in AI ethics, who are either currently enrolled as Ph.D. students or within ten years of the award of their Ph.D., to submit a 500 word precis of the 15 minute presentation they propose to give at the conference. The presentation should engage with Aristotelian ideas as they bear on the pressing ethical or political questions thrown up by AI. Those selected to present at the conference will have economy air fare and two nights’ accommodation in Athens covered by the Lyceum Project.
Applicants should:
- Fill out the application form, including details of a referee
- Forward your precis and a one-page CV to aiethics@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
- Meet the deadline for submissions of 5pm BST, April 30, 2024
This event will be open to the public free of charge. Details regarding attendance will be available soon.
The Lyceum Project is generously supported by the Patrick J McGovern Foundation, the Cosmos Institute, the Athens Conservatory, and the Stanford University Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
John Tasioulas
John Tasioulas is Professor of Ethics and Legal Philosophy; Director of the Institute for Ethics in AI. John joined as Director in October 2020 and was previously Chair of Politics, Philosophy and Law and Director of the Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy & Law at King’s College London. He is also Distinguished Research Fellow of the Oxford, Uehiro Centre and Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
John is a member of the International Advisory Board Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA), European Parliament and a member of the Greek Prime Minister's High-Level Advisory Committee on AI.
Charlie Taben graduated from Middlebury College in 1983 with a BA in philosophy and has been a financial services executive for nearly 40 years. He studied at Harvard University during his junior year and says one of the highlights of his life was taking John Rawls’ class. Today, Charlie remains engaged with the discipline, focusing on Spinoza, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer. He has worked with the APA Blog, creating the Philosophy and the Mirror of Technology Series. Charlie has also performed volunteer work for the Philosophical Society of England. You can find Charlie on Twitter @gbglax
