Events
December 18, 2024
Shaping Viable Futures: Human Agency and Artificial Intelligence
From social media to chatbots, today’s technologies already test the boundaries of social trust and accountability, and these new AI products may create new risks while intensifying existing concerns and harms. The introduction of “AI agents” and “AI assistants”—systems that pursue goals with limited supervision on behalf of users and organizations—are a reminder of the profound questions about humanity and technology. How can we ensure that increasingly autonomous AI systems, operating with reduced transparency and oversight, don't further erode these foundations of trust and accountability? As AI systems impact human rights, freedoms, and liberties, what are the implications of a future where AI assistants might act on our behalf without our explicit awareness or consent? IAS scholar Alondra Nelson led a discussion with an expert panel of leaders from policy, research, industry, and creative sectors: The Honourable Chi Onwurah, MP and Chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee (UK); Dorothy Chou, head of the Public Engagement Lab at Google DeepMind; John Tasioulas, Director of the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford; and Julian Bleecker, founder of the Near Future Laboratory.
November 6, 2024
Morals and Machines Prize: A Conversation with Alondra Nelson
This on-stage conversation from the Ada Lovelace Festival with Alondra Nelson, the renowned technology policy expert, former science advisor to Joe Biden, and recipient of the 2024 Morals and Machines Prize gets to the bottom of current questions on topics such as responsible technologies, AI regulation, and US politics.
April 9, 2024
IAS Public Policy Lecture: Margrethe Vestager, Three Things Oppenheimer Tells us About Tech
Margrethe Vestager, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age and a leading global voice on technology policy and equitable innovation, delivered the 2024 IAS Public Policy Lecture, followed by a Q&A led by Alondra Nelson, the Harold F. Linder Chair in the School of Social Science.
January 24, 2024
Exploring AI Threats to Electoral Integrity
AI Democracy Projects founders—award-winning investigative journalist Julia Angwin and Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, and the Honorable Francisco V. Aguilar, Nevada Secretary of State, in conversation with SIPA Lecturer Camille François about the potential risks and benefits to the US election ecosystem presented by AI, and how policymakers, AI experts, and journalists can begin to test AI tools for electoral-information integrity in a way that provides education, information, and accountability to the public.
October 19, 2023
Thick Alignment, Ethics in AI Annual Lecture, University of Oxford
What is thick alignment? Nelson draws on the notion of “thick descriptions” as taken by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who himself drew inspiration from Gilbert Ryle’s work. In Geertz’s view, thin descriptions of cultures merely observe the actions of these individuals, whereas thick descriptions go beyond the surface and attempt to capture the deeper layers of meaning embedded in a culture. Translating that to her topic, what we might call “thin alignment” focuses on technically encoding values into AI. We must pay closer attention to the social contexts in which we deploy AI technologies and reject the idea that there are value-neutral uses of these technologies. (Kyle Van Oosterum)
September 20, 2023
Building the World We Want: Artificial Intelligence and Global Governance
IAS scholar and writer Alondra Nelson led a discussion on the transnational impacts of artificial intelligence and the need for global collaboration with Karen Kornbluh, Distinguished Fellow for Technology and Competitiveness at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. and former U.S. Ambassador to the OECD; Maria Ressa, CEO and President of Rappler and Nobel laureate; Olatunbosun Tijani, the Honorable Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy for the Republic of Nigeria; and Tim Wu, Julius Silver Professor of Law, Science and Technology at Columbia University, and an introduction from Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg.
June 6, 2023
Steering AI for the Public Good
A panel of computer scientists, social scientists, technology developers, and policy advisors from the AI Policy and Governance Working Group discussed how the research community, industry, government, civil society, and the public can work collaboratively on strategies for the development of AI systems that embed a diverse and representative range of humanity’s priorities and advance democratic values. With Miranda Bogen, Brian Christian, Sorelle Friedler and William Isaac, in conversation with Harold F. Linder Professor Alondra Nelson, with an introduction from Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg.
November 6, 2019
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society
A Cross-Disciplinary Conversation with Pedro Domingos, University of Washington, and Mary Gray, Microsoft and Harvard University; moderated by Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor, School of Social Science.