Living absence:the strange geographies of missing people

In this paper ‘missing people’ gain an unstable presence through their (restaged) testimonies recounting individual occupations of material urban public space during the lived practice of absence. We explore ‘missing experience’ with reference to homeless geographies, and as constituted by paradoxical spatialities in which people are both absent and present. We seek to understand such urban geographies of absence through diverse voices of missing people, who discuss their embodiment of unusual rhythmic occupations of the city. We conclude by considering how a new politics of missing people might take account of such voices in ways to think further about rights-to-be-absent in the city

Building Ethics into Artificial Intelligence

As artificial intelligence (AI) systems become increasingly ubiquitous, the topic of AI governance for ethical decision-making by AI has captured public imagination. Within the AI research community, this topic remains less familiar to many researchers. In this paper, we complement existing surveys, which largely focused on the psychological, social and legal discussions of the topic, with an analysis of recent advances in technical solutions for AI governance. By reviewing publications in leading AI conferences including AAAI, AAMAS, ECAI and IJCAI, we propose a taxonomy which divides the field into four areas: 1) exploring ethical dilemmas; 2) individual ethical decision frameworks; 3) collective ethical decision frameworks; and 4) ethics in human-AI interactions. We highlight the intuitions and key techniques used in each approach, and discuss promising future research directions towards successful integration of ethical AI systems into human societies

Welfare and Quantity of Life

The Animal welfare science is mostly focused on evaluating and improving the quality of life of animals that actually exist. This leaves out a range of ethically relevant issues regarding the quantity of life – in terms of number of animals living and the longevity of each animal. In many cases quantity and quality are related, and often there is a tension between the two. In this chapter, we develop a discussion around four practical cases presenting quality-quantity dilemmas: a) the issue of dairy cow longevity, b) the early slaughter of male dairy calves, c) the killing of newly-hatched male layer chicks and d) the conflict between reduction and refinement in animal research. The practical, economic and animal welfare aspects characterizing each case are presented together with relevant stakeholders’ perspective. We discuss the cases in light of the most relevant currents of thought in animal ethics, highlighting the main values at stake and which possible solutions may be sought according to each perspective

De la neuroética al neo-romanticismo. La respuesta de Aldous Huxley a las propuestas actuales para la regulación ética y legal de la neurociencia

The neuroethics field emerged in the early 2000s in an effort to face important philosophical dilemmas and anticipate disruptive social changes linked to the use of neurotechnology (Safire, 2002). From very early on, this field grew out of two core issues, namely inquiries into the ethics of neuroscience –concerning the moral use of knowledge and technology– and inquiries into the neuroscience of ethics –on how new brain function evidence can change human self-understanding (Roskies 2002). Similarly, neurolaw is now on a parallel path with two main pillars as Chandler (2018) suggested, (1) “self-reflexive inquiry” (the neuroscience of law) and (2) “inquiry into the development and use of brain science and technologies” (the law of neuroscience). In this paper, I suggest that these two lines of research are still excessively disconnected from one another and, to support this claim, I analyze the three potential point-of-no-return risks that Aldous Huxley associated with technological challenges, namely centralization of power, bureaucratic alienation, and scientific idealism. In addition, I show how Huxley shifted analysis of technological problems from a focus on the rights of potential victims to the duties of potential aggressors. Finally, I argue that Aldous Huxley’s view on how to build a bridge that brings pillars 1) and 2) closer together also helps prevent the technological point-of-no-return. According to Huxley, the key is found in paying particular attention to understanding contemplative activity, reinforcing its role in the study of reality, and, eventually, returning the romantic gaze updated to academia.El campo de la neuroética surge a principios de la década de 2000 en un esfuerzo por enfrentar dilemas filosóficos relevantes y anticipar cambios sociales disruptivos vinculados al uso de la neurotecnología (Safire, 2002). Desde muy pronto, este campo fue constituido en torno a dos cuestiones centrales, a saber, las investigaciones sobre la ética de la neurociencia –en relación con el uso moral del conocimiento y la tecnología– y las investigaciones sobre la neurociencia de la ética –sobre cómo la nueva evidencia de la función cerebral puede cambiar la autocomprensión humana (Roskies 2002)–. De manera similar, el campo del neuroderecho se encuentra ahora en un camino paralelo y, como señala Chandler (2018), se asienta en dos pilares principales: (1) “la indagación autorreflexiva” (la neurociencia del derecho) y (2) “la indagación sobre el desarrollo y uso del cerebro ciencia y tecnologías” (la ley de la neurociencia). En este artículo, sugiero que estas dos líneas de investigación todavía están excesivamente desconectadas entre sí y, para respaldar esta afirmación, analizo los tres riesgos potenciales de punto de no retorno que Aldous Huxley asocia a los desafíos tecnológicos, a saber, la centralización de poder, la alienación burocrática y el idealismo científico. Además, muestro cómo Huxley cambia el enfoque habitual: traslada el análisis de los derechos de las potenciales víctimas al análisis de los deberes de los potenciales agresores. Finalmente, sostengo que la visión de Aldous Huxley sobre cómo construir un puente que acerque los pilares 1) y 2) también ayudaría a prevenir el punto de no retornotecnológico. Según Huxley, la clave está en comprender mejor la actividad contemplativa, en reforzar su papel en el estudio de la realidad y, finalmente, en devolver una renovada visión romántica a la academia.Filosofí

Artificial virtuous agents in a multi‐agent tragedy of the commons

Although virtue ethics has repeatedly been proposed as a suitable framework for the development of artificial moral agents (AMAs), it has been proven difficult to approach from a computational perspective. In this work, we present the first technical implementation of artificial virtuous agents (AVAs) in moral simulations. First, we review previous conceptual and technical work in artificial virtue ethics and describe a functionalistic path to AVAs based on dispositional virtues, bottom-up learning, and top-down eudaimonic reward. We then provide the details of a technical implementation in a moral simulation based on a tragedy of the commons scenario. The experimental results show how the AVAs learn to tackle cooperation problems while exhibiting core features of their theoretical counterpart, including moral character, dispositional virtues, learning from experience, and the pursuit of eudaimonia. Ultimately, we argue that virtue ethics provides a compelling path toward morally excellent machines and that our work provides an important starting point for such endeavors