The Ethics and Governance of AI: On the Role of Universities

Urs Gasser
Executive Director @BKCHarvard - Professor of Practice @Harvard_Law

Artificial intelligence is everywhere, at times obscured and sometimes fully hidden. It lurks in the Facebook newsfeed algorithm that curates the news you see, it’s being implemented in the programs of semi-autonomous vehicles that decide who lives in case of an accident, and it spectacularly beat the top Go champions in the world with its deep neural network technology. The applications of AI are evolving with increased sophistication, sparking considerable, complex questions related the social impact, governance, and ethics of its technology. These questions are particularly salient as accountability mechanisms for algorithms are yet in a nascent stage, where the balance of power is skewed towards industry giants who control these technologies. In this particular moment, the research, development, and deployment of AI is primarily taking place in the private sector, while governments around the world are increasingly contracting out their own use of these powerful technologies.

In this context, the future role of universities emerges as one that is particularly meaningful when it comes to addressing these questions of social impact, ethics, and governance of AI. Indeed, the history of AI and its emergence as a discipline in the 1950s itself is closely intertwined with academic researchers and institutions, particularly in the United States, but also in Russia and elsewhere. The magnitude of the structural changes in society to be expected from AI and related technologies and the relative concentration of power provokes the question: What is the role of universities in particular, and the social and public interest in general, when it comes to the ethics and governance of AI and related technologies?

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