Ethics, computer systems and the professions

Chair

• Prof. Anthony Finkelstein

Discussants

• Prof. Neil Lawrence
• Prof. Burkhard Schafer
• Mr Jonathan Price and
• Dr Sylvie Delacroix

Visit the event website for more information.

About the talk

This workshop aimed to foster robust inter-disciplinary debate on the ethical challenges raised by the professions’ growing reliance on computer systems to replace or assist them with an increasing number of tasks

The workshop was organised around four key threads for discussion:

1. “Ethics by Design?”  To what extent is it possible to design computer systems that not only reduce professionals’ cognitive load but also actively improve their situational (and ethical) awareness? (for more details download ‘Ethics, Computer Systems and the Professions’)
2. “Developing awareness of the limits of computer systems, their (in)ability to explain themselves, and their appropriate use”: Do we need a new “triage” profession?
3. Debunking “learned” biases and prohibited discrimination within computer systems
4. “Learning the trade”: will the acquisition of professional “soft skills” be compromised by the automation of simple, repetitive tasks?

About the chair and speakers:
Anthony Finkelstein was appointed Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security in December 2015. His research is based at The Alan Turing Institute and he holds a Chair in Software Systems Engineering at University College London (UCL). He is a visiting professor at Imperial College London and at the National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), an elected Member of Academia Europaea (MAE) and a Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute (FCGI). Prior to assuming his current role, he was Dean of the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences and Head of UCL Computer Science

Burkhard Schafer joined the School of Law of the University of Edinburgh in 1996, serving as Director of the SCRIPT Centre for IT and IP law and holding the chair of Computational Legal Theory since 2010. His main research interests is the intersection between law, science and technology, looking at both the regulation of technology through law and also at the way in which science and technology can improve our understanding of the nature of law and legal reasoning. He is member of the steering group on law and AI of the German Association for Informatics, and member of the ethics advisory board of the Alan Turing Institute.

Neil Lawrence is leading the Machine Learning team for Amazon in Cambridge. He is on leave of absence from the University of Sheffield where he was a Professor in Computational Biology and Machine Learning jointly appointed across the Departments of Neuroscience and Computer Science. He moved to Sheffield in August 2010 from the School of Computer Science in Manchester, where he was a Senior Research Fellow. His research interests are in probabilistic models with applications in computational biology and personalized health. At Sheffield he worked with a team to develop the Open Data Science Initiative, an approach to data science designed to address societal needs.

Jonathan Price is a barrister who specialises in media, publication and information law with a particular focus on social media and online libel and privacy.

Sylvie Delacroix is a Reader in legal theory and ethics in UCL Laws and UCL Computer Science. In 2010 she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize to pursue her research on the intersection between law and ethics. She was the founding director of the UCL Centre for Ethics and Law. She is the principal investigator of a multi-disciplinary research project –“Picking up ethical challenges within the humdrum of professional practice: can 3D avatars help?” that relies on immersive virtual reality technology to gain a better understanding of the way we make moral decisions in a professional context (vep.cs.ucl.ac.uk).Her forthcoming Habitual Ethics notably investigates the risks inherent in the type of habits fostered by both computer systems and legal systems.