Speaker: Dr Jim Everett
Artificial intelligence is increasingly being asked to help with decisions that matter. Yet the intersection of AI and morality goes far beyond the familiar idea of “moral machines” making explicitly moral choices. Morality also shapes how we understand AI, what we expect from it, when we trust it, and how we judge people and institutions that choose to rely on it. In this talk, I will present some recent projects from my group and argue that morality - and therefore moral psychology — is central to understanding our relationship with AI. The way that people think about AI is not only about what an AI can do, but about how it behaves, why it behaves that way, and whether it should be doing a particular task at all. We infer moral qualities from machine intelligence even when the two should be logically independent; our willingness to rely on AI changes when decisions become morally charged; and using AI can itself have moral and social consequences, shaping how others see the character, motives, or legitimacy of the humans and institutions behind it. Understanding trust in AI requires us to study how people think about morality, and the kind of world that our trust in AI helps to create.
12:30pm-1:30pm - Seminar
1:30pm-2:30pm - Networking Lunch (for those registered to attend in person)
In-person Venue: The address will be sent to you once you register.
Remote: The connection link will be sent to registered attendees (usually the day before the event).
These sessions will run fortnightly during term time. A new form will need to be completed for each seminar so that you receive the relevant joining instructions.
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Dr Jim A.C. Everett is a Reader (Associate Professor) at the University of Kent in the UK. With a background in both philosophy and psychology, Jim is a leading expert on moral judgment, perceptions of moral character, and the moral psychology of artificial intelligence. Jim’s current work is funded by five-year €1.7 million ERC Grant that focuses on when, why, and how we trust AI. By linking the psychology of trust with debates in AI ethics, political theory, and moral philosophy, Jim’s work shows that understanding trust in AI requires considering not only how people think, but also reflecting on the kind of world that trust in AI serves to create.
Jim has published his work in leading journals such as Psychological Review, Psychological Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Bioethics, and Nature Human Behavior. He has received numerous awards for his contributions to the field, including a Leverhulme Prize, the SPSP Early Career Award, the EASP Early Career Award, an SPSP Theoretical Innovation Prize, and the APS Rising Star award. Prior to joining Kent, Jim completed a PhD and PostDoc at the University of Oxford, a Fulbright Fellowship at Harvard University, and a Marie Curie PostDoc at Leiden University.
Host
Dr Keri Grieman is an Early Career Research Fellow in Ethics in AI (AI and Law) and a research fellow at Oriel College. She is an Associate Member of Oxford’s Department of Computer Science. Keri is the author of Law, Death, and Robots: The Regulation of Artificial Intelligence in High-Risk Civil Applications, published by Hart.