Seminari Internacional amb Marco Russo: Moral Machines

Moral Machines

Artificial intelligence forces us to re-examine the concept of intelligence. But it also forces us to re-examine the concept of morality. Today, AI is indispensable for making decisions in the military, medical, legal and commercial fields; it also performs affective functions in dialogue with chatbots, in virtual reality, in caring for people, and even in love relationships. Machines act together with us and with increasing autonomy. The standard ethical approach involves a set of rules and prohibitions. Another approach seeks to educate machines to understand what is right or wrong to do. The talk presents a brief overview, with a focus on the second approach, because it raises interesting questions. ‘Moral machines’ take us into an uncanny valley that challenges our certainties, as is always the case with AI, because it is a strange mirror of who we are.

Marco Russo is currently Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Salerno (Italy). His research mainly concerns the concepts of world and humanity, in their metaphysical, epistemological and ethical aspects. He is a member of the scientific advisory board of the “Helmuth Plessner Gesellschaft” and of various Kantian academies (SiEKLF, RIKEPS, SISK). Among his publications: The Age of Men (Bologna 2023); (ed.) Philosophical Cosmology (special issue of the on-line review “Thaumazein”; 2022); Cosmology and Humanism in Kant (Palermo 2020); The World. Profile of an idea (Milan 2017); (ed.) Humanism. History, criticism, relevance (Florence 2015).