Aims, contents, and methods
Emerging technologies like AI, the Internet of Things, and Blockchain Technology, have an increasingly transformative impact on people and society. In this course, students will be introduced to the different ways to theorise emerging technology, reflect on its ethical impacts, and use practical tools to integrate ethical reflection in day-to-day projects.
The course consists of three parts. The first part covers the basics: presenting major ethical issues with emerging technologies from a historical perspective, explaining the link between ethical theories and technology, and presenting different ways to think about technological mediation. The second part focuses on ethics of particular types of emerging technologies: of artificial intelligence (e.g., deep learning), artificial life (e.g., genetic modification) and existential machines (e.g., the atomic bomb). The third part contextualises the ethics of emerging technologies in a discussion of three global challenges: global citizenship and human rights, climate change, and violence.
The course uses methods of philosophical reflection, argumentation, empirical and historical research, and applied ethics.
- מורה: ווסל ראיירס