Professor Juliet Floyd Featured in BU Today AI Article
The Department would like to congratulate Professor Juliet Floyd on being featured in an article in BU Today on AI. In the article Professor Floyd states:
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In Europe there has been legislation to protect privacy and legislation against Facebook. There are many large, international university research grants dealing with AI, sustainability, and smart cities—e.g., in Singapore, where philosophers and ethicists sit on boards. There is a large push on ethics at UNESCO as well. In the United States, there will have to be legislation. Many software developers want legislation if it allows them to understand the field they are playing in, because the Wild West isn’t fun. Cyberlaw is a crucial area of research and education and will be pursued intensively, ideally with the help of faculty and students versed in anthropology, history, and the arts and humanities generally.
I’ve learned much from attending workshops with the Cyber Security, Law and Society Alliance at Boston University, a concerned group of faculty brought together through the Hariri Institute and the School of Law. They regularly discuss these matters and are making fundamental contributions to the handling of privacy, disinformation, cybersecurity, and pursuing much-needed discussion of how to mitigate harmful impacts on vulnerable members of our society that AI has already begun to cause. A pause on large training models would allow us to reflect and discuss what we care about, including how to invest in developing ways to include the voices and perspectives of the young, the marginalized, and vulnerable populations in the design of AI in the future.
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Congratulations, Juliet!