The open and free online course Ethics of AI is designed to help us understand what it means to use AI ethically, and what it requires from society and individuals. The course uses examples of practical issues from its collaboration partners.
The Finnish and Swedish translations for the University of Helsinki's online course Ethics of AI will open on 23 November, in connection with a seminar on information policy at the Ministry of Finances. The course will help public administration, companies, and citizens understand what it means to use AI ethically and what that requires of both society and the individual. The course has been developed as a collaboration with the cities of Helsinki, Amsterdam, and London, as well as the Finnish Ministry of Finances.
Since AI is increasingly being used as a support for decisions concerning citizens, new kinds of questions emerge that the course is designed to sort out. What ethical viewpoints do the users and developers of different AI systems need to take into consideration? What are the ethical stumbling blocks when e.g. handling information on people's health? How is our information used? Who is responsible for decisions made by computers? How do we use face recognition ethically?
Lecturer Anna-Mari Rusanen, the person responsible for the contents of the course, wants to point out that the ethics of algorithms and intelligent technologies in general are still being formed, and the whole discussion on how to evaluate intelligent technologies socially is still ongoing.
- New examples of situations requiring ethical evaluation appear every day. This is why it is vital to develop the skills to assess the principles for weighing the acceptability of the applications, says Rusanen.
Rusanen specialises in AI and cognition research. She studies the information processing of intelligent systems and the ethical and social consequences of AI development.
- AI ethics is not just about the evaluation of the ethical acceptance of the technology; it has morphed into a question about politics, money and power. The more they become entangled into the objectives of AI development, the more we need a discourse on the goals of the development, Rusanen writes in the book Älykäs huominen (the intelligent morrow) (Gaudeamus) that was published in autumn 2021.
