About

Based at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), San Luis Obispo, the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group is a non-partisan organization focused on the risk, ethical, and social impact of emerging sciences and technologies.

Events

8 March 2022: We will give a briefing on data ethics to a DARPA ISAT workshop on wearable technologies.

11 March 2022: Prof. Stuart Russell (Berkeley) will give an invited talk at Cal Poly on human-compatible artificial intelligence

29 April 2022: We will be giving a briefing on emerging threats at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, Naval Postgraduate School.

23-24 June 2022: We are co-organizing a workshop and will be giving a talk on AI policing at Northwestern University.

19 July 2022: We will be giving a talk on military AI ethics to the US Army War College.

21 July 2022: We will be giving a conference panel talk on AI ethics at Santa Clara University.

The Latest News

3 October 2022
Cal Poly
Cal Poly Wins $700,000 Federal Grant to Study the Social Impacts of AI Kitchens and Robot Cooks

12 September 2022
Cal Poly
Cal Poly Wins First-Ever Grant on Space Cybersecurity from US National Science Foundation

8 September 2022
The Prindle Post
Were Parts of Your Mind Made in a Factory?

15 July 2022
Northwestern Univ. News
CASMI Hosts Workshop on Data-Driven Policing

7 July 2022
United Nations, Office of Disarmament Affairs
Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education: 10th Biennial Report of the Secretary General

1 July 2022
CNN
AI Made These Stunning Images. Here's Why Experts Are Worried

22 June 2022
The Prindle Post
The Curious Case of LaMDA, the AI that Claimed to Be Sentient

11 May 2022
The Prindle Post
Cryonics: The Trap Objection

28 April 2022
The Prindle Post
No Fun and Games

4 April 2022
MIT Press
A Reading List for National Robotics Week

24 March 2022
Public Ethics
The Ethics of Deepfake Pornography

19 March 2022
Which Car? (Australia)
The Autonomy Dilemma: Are We Ready for Self-Driving?

2 March 2022
Independent Online (South Africa)
Russia-Ukraine War Faces Devastating Digital Attacks by “Forces” Armed with Viruses and Other Tech Weapons

Fall 2021
Impact Magazine (Cal Poly CLA)
Early Detection System for Technology Ethics

Fall 2021
Cal Poly Magazine
Sleepwalking Into Our Future

22 September 2021
Psychology Today
Stanford Releases Report on the Current State of AI

5 July 2021
VentureBeat
AI Legislation Must Address Bias in Algorithmic Decision-Making Systems

31 May 2021
MedCity News
FDA Faces Big Questions As It Takes a Closer Look at AI Regulations

22 May 2021
dot.LA
Immersion Tracks Oxytocin Levels to Improve Entertainment. Critics Fear It's Going Too Far.

18 March 2021
Wired
A New York Lawmaker Wants to Ban Police Use of Armed Robots

8 February 2021
BBC
The Myth and Reality of the Super Soldier

More news here.

Selected Publications

•   Chapter: Does Just War Theory Extend to the Space Frontier?, in Military Space Ethics

•   Paper: Rule by Automation: How Automated Decision Systems Promote Freedom and Equality, in Moral Philosophy and Politics

•   Chapter: Outer Space as a New Frontier for Technology Ethics, in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology

•   Paper: Big Brother Goes to School: Best Practices for Campus Surveillance Technologies During the COVID-19 Pandemic, in Techné (Society of Philosophy and Technology)

•   Report: Artificial Intelligence Ethics and Predictive Policing: A Roadmap for Research, funded by the US National Science Foundation

•   Book: Robot Ethics 2.0: From Autonomous Cars to Artificial Intelligence, with Oxford University Press

•   Report: UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) Traffic Management: Recommendations for Seamless Integration, with WhiteFox Defense Technologies

•   Report: Ethics of Hacking Back: 6 Arguments from Armed Conflict to Zombies, funded by the US National Science Foundation

•   Report: Autonomous Vehicles, Ethics & Law: Toward an Overlapping Consensus, with New America Foundation

•   Chapter: Why Ethics Matter for Autonomous Cars, in a Daimler and Benz Foundation book

•   Report: Enhanced Warfighters: Ethics, Risk, and Policy, funded by The Greenwall Foundation

•   Book: Robot Ethics: The Social and Ethical Implications of Robotics, with MIT Press

•   Book: What Is Nanotechnology and Why Does It Matter?: From Science to Ethics, with Wiley-Blackwell

•   Report: Ethics of Human Enhancement: 25 Questions & Answers, funded by the US National Science Foundation

•   Report: Autonomous Military Robotics: Risk, Ethics, and Design, funded by the US Office of Naval Research

More publications here.