Irina Raicu is the director of the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. Views are her own.
Amid a maelstrom of articles and academic papers addressing the ethics of artificial intelligence, the following selection of readings aims to highlight some key issues. While it is by no means exhaustive, we hope it will provide a useful starting point for conversations about AI ethics. (Note: most recently updated on 3/3/2021, with five additional readings.)
Don’t Believe Every AI You See
by danah boyd
https://ai.shorensteincenter.org/ideas/2018/11/12/dont-believe-every-ai-you-see-1
AI Researchers Allege that Machine Learning Is Alchemy
by Matthew Hutson
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/ai-researchers-allege-machine-learning-alchemy
Should We Be Afraid of AI?
by Luciano Floridi
https://aeon.co/essays/true-
Anatomy of an AI System
by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joren
https://anatomyof.ai/
How AI Will Rewire Us
by Nicholas Christakis
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/robots-human-relationships/583204/
Style Is an Algorithm
by Kyle Chayka
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/17/17219166/fashion-style-algorithm-amazon-echo-look
Algorithms Aren’t Racist. Your Skin Is Just Too Dark.
by Joy Buolamwini
https://hackernoon.com/algorithms-arent-racist-your-skin-is-just-too-dark-4ed31a7304b8
If AI Is Going to Be the World’s Doctor, It Needs Better Books
by Dave Gershgorn
https://qz.com/1367177/if-ai-is-going-to-be-the-worlds-doctor-it-needs-better-textbooks/
When Are Predictions Policies?
by Zachary Lipton
http://approximatelycorrect.com/2019/02/13/when-are-predictions-policies/
Giving Algorithms a Sense of Uncertainty Could Make Them More Ethical
by Karen Hao
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612764/giving-algorithms-a-sense-of-uncertainty-could-make-them-more-ethical/
The Weirdest Languages
by Tyler Schnoebelen
https://corplinguistics.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/the-weirdest-languages/
Alexa and The Age of Casual Rudeness
by Ken Gordon
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/04/alexa-manners-smart-speakers-command/558653/
We Don't Need Robots that Resemble Humans
by Evan Selinger
https://medium.com/s/when-
The Ethics of Automation: Poetry and Robot Priests
by David O’Hara
http://slowperc.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-ethics-of-automation-poetry-and.html
Attacks Against Machine Learning: An Overview
by Elie Bursztein
https://elie.net/blog/ai/attacks-against-machine-learning-an-overview/
AI Ethics: Seven Traps
by Annette Zimmerman and Bendert Zevenbergen
https://freedom-to-tinker.com/
Moral Deskilling and Upskilling in a New Machine Age
by Shannon Vallor
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13347-014-0156-9
Multi-year datasets suggest projecting outcomes of people’s lives with AI isn’t so simple
By B. Rose Huber
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/03/31/multi-year-datasets-suggest-projecting-outcomes-peoples-lives-ai-isnt-so-simple
States' Automated Systems Are Trapping Citizens in Bureaucratic Nightmares With Their Lives on the Line
By Alejandro De La Garza
https://time.com/5840609/algorithm-unemployment/
Masakhane: Using AI to Bring African Languages Into the Global Conversation
By Katie Cashman
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13347-014-0156-9
AI Index Diversity Report: An Unmoving Needle
By Beth Jensen
https://hai.stanford.edu/blog/ai-index-diversity-report-unmoving-needle
Deep Learning’s Carbon Emissions Problem
By Rob Toews
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2020/06/17/deep-learnings-climate-change-problem/?sh=722ee0a66b43
A Misdirected Application of AI Ethics
by Abeba Birhane and Jelle Van Dijk
https://www.noemamag.com/a-misdirected-application-of-ai-ethics/
Why Robustness Is Key to Deploying AI
by Jacob Steinhardt and Helen Toner
https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/why-robustness-is-key-to-deploying-ai/
Photo by Hillel Steinberg, cropped, used under a Creative Commons license.