Ethics of Emerging Technologies

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course examines some of the most important contemporary issues in the field of ethics of emerging technologies to help you to develop a familiarity with the debates and stimulate your ability to discuss, reflect on, and defend your own views. 202320 HG: Ethical concerns about the use of AI are omnipresent. There are concerns about discriminatory misguided decisions - for example, if residents of certain neighborhoods receive poorer insurance based on AI calculations. And the fear of AI errors with fatal side effects is omnipresent - for example, if an accident occurs during autonomous driving. Medicine in particular is considered a high-risk area for AI applications. However, in addition to the fact that medicine is a matter of life and death, it has another special feature: Here, the doctor and the machine are supposed to work hand in hand. However, if one doctor works hand in hand with another doctor, they can justify their decisions to each other - and deal with these justifications rationally. But to what extent is this possible with an AI? This raises a number of epistemological questions that require philosophical clarification - questions about the similarity and dissimilarity of machine calculations to human thinking. These very questions ultimately have ethical consequences in terms of application and responsibility.