“Ethics, in isolation, possess limited power unless grafted to a catalyst for tangible change or enforcement.”
AE
Before taking Data and Artificial Intelligence Ethics, Law, and Governance, my view of AI ethics was predominantly shaped by a combination of professional projects and a fascination with the moral questions that arise when humans create intelligent machines. I had placed, albeit unknowingly, asymmetrical importance on ethics, which I believed outranked all else. To me, ethics was not merely a tool for identifying potential issues in AI; it was a sincere, albeit somewhat naive, conviction that it could single-handedly resolve these issues by creating more moral technological systems. The question of how I should create these systems did not occur to me until what I refer to as the “re-frame moment,” a pivotal point of transformation hinging on a new fundamental idea derived from the course. Ethics, in isolation, possess limited power unless grafted to a catalyst for tangible change or enforcement.