Comparative Philosophies in Intercultural Information Ethics

The following review explores Intercultural Information Ethics in terms of comparative philosophy, supporting IIE as the most relevant and significant development of the field of Information Ethics. The focus of the review is threefold. First, it will review the core presumption of the field of IIE, that being the demand for an intermission in the pursuit of a founding philosophy for IE in order to first address the philosophical biases of IE by western philosophy. Second, a history of the various philosophical streams of IIE will be outlined, including its literature and pioneering contributors. Lastly, a new synthesis of comparative philosophies in IIE will be offered, looking towards a future evolution of the field. Examining the interchange between contemporary information ethicists regarding the discipline of IIE, the review first outlines the previously established presumptions of the field of IIE that posit the need for an IE as grounded in western sensibilities. The author then addresses the implications of the foregoing presumption from several non-western viewpoints, arguing that IIE does in fact find roots in non-western philosophies as established in the concluding synthesis of western and eastern philosophical traditions

On the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

Currently, AI ethics is failing in many cases. Ethics lacks a reinforcement mechanism. Deviations from the various codes of ethics have no consequences. And in cases where ethics is integrated into institutions, it mainly serves as a marketing strategy. Furthermore, empirical experiments show that reading ethics guidelines has no significant influence on the decision- making of software developers. It is a boom time for artificial intelligence (AI) and ethics. All sorts of groups have launched manifestos, declarations, toolkits and lists of principles to set the ethical agenda. There are so many lists of principles that now other groups are providing guides to all the lists. You would think that having all these principles and checklists would be a good thing, but many of them are being generated by industry or by scientists. We risk ignoring other approaches to ethics that come from the humanities. In this panel we will present a dialogue of philosophical perspectives and informatics approaches on artificial intelligence (AI). These reflect an interdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Alberta between faculty and students across Digital Humanities, Philosophy, Communications, and Library and Information Studie