Visions of artificial intelligence have often sought to keep a 'human in the loop' rather than creating fully autonomous systems, and various regulations require human intervention in automated decision-making. One account of why we have these provisions is that by bringing a human into the AI system, we can reconnect with the emotive basis of ethical decision-making. But this motivation seems at odds with the reality of the dominant forces behind the majority of real-world applications of AI today, which seem premised on the removal of human judgement, creativity and empathy.
In this context, rather than a meaningful counteracting force, the human in the loop may end up as a fig leaf which actually serves to legitimate whatever the underlying logics of the AI system are. In this talk, Reuben Benns, Associate Professor of Human Centred Computing, Department of Computing Science, the University of Oxford will cover some of the ways in which a human in the loop may in fact provide a loophole allowing fundamentally anti-human technologies to be deployed.
Moderator of the session: Markus Naarttijärvi, professor at Department of Law and Focus Area Coordinator Critical, Ethical, Legal and Social AI at TAIGA.
#frAIday is a series of inspiring talks on Artificial Intelligence organised by TAIGA, the Centre for Transdisciplinary AI at Umeå University. Please register here, and we will send you a link in good time before the event, open to everyone who is interested in AI!