September 20th, 2023 
Brussels, Belgium
The EMERGE consortium invites you to the workshop “Inside the Ethics of AI Awareness”, on September 20th, 2023, in Brussels, Belgium.
The workshop will gather representatives of various EIC-funded projects and presents an opportunity for philosophers, computer scientists, roboticists and other experts to contribute to a nuanced understanding of ethical concerns surrounding artificial systems.
The workshop will feature two talks by Alan Winfield (University of Bristol) and Katleen Gabriels (Maastricht University), and offer opportunities for discussions and networking.
>> Registration: Attendance is free but registration is required. Please register at: https://forms.gle/kZ6y5psRaRFB6hrS6
>> Venue: Hotel Thon, Rue de la Loi 75, 1040 Brussels.
>> Program:
15:30 - 16:00 | Welcome Coffee
16:00 - 17:00 | Keynote: Alan Winfield (University of Bristol)
“Towards an Ethical Governance Framework for (self) aware systems.”
AI systems or intelligent robots that we might suspect have some degree of (self) awareness will need careful ethical governance. This is not only because of the possible impact of awareness on interactions with human users but the need for monitoring the operation of the systems themselves, especially if they exhibit signs of self-awareness. In previous work we suggested an ethical governance approach for explicitly ethical machines*. This paper will propose a framework, based on that approach, for the strong ethical governance of (self) aware systems. *AF Winfield, K Michael, J Pitt and V Evers (2019) Machine Ethics: The Design and Governance of Ethical AI and Autonomous Systems, doi: 10.1109/JPROC.2019.2900622.
17:00 - 18:00 | Keynote: Katleen Gabriels (Maastricht University)
“AI Enhancement: Can human intelligence be cognitively and morally enhanced by artificial intelligence?”
The advantages artificial intelligence (AI) has over humans are, among other things, efficiency, speed, and consistency. Today, machines perform many sophisticated analyses as well or even better than humans, for instance in the context of medical decision-making, and sometimes even in ways humans would not themselves anticipate. AlphaGo defeated world champion Lee Sedol in 2016 in the Chinese board game Go. By playing millions of matches, AlphaGo discovered strategies. During the game with Sedol, AlphaGo made a brilliant move showing great insight. AlphaGo surprised human observers and eventually made people play Go differently by trying out the new moves. As AI is humanmade, it is fair to say that it has learned from us, from our human intelligence. Yet, the example of AlphaGo seems to suggest that human intelligence can also learn from artificial intelligence. The guiding question of this presentation is: to what extent can AI enhance us cognitively (see e.g., Nyholm, 2023) and morally (based on Volkman & Gabriels, 2023)? I will argue, among other things, that a modular system of multiple AI interlocutors could play a valuable role to enhance human moral awareness.
18:00 - 19:30 | Reception
