science wire

EPFL professor Anthony Davison and co-authors provide a mathematical basis for concerns about ethical implications of AI. Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly deployed around us and may have large potential benefits. But there are growing concerns about the unethical use of AI. Professor Anthony Davison, who holds the Chair of Statistics at EPFL, and colleagues in the UK, have tackled these questions from a mathematical point of view, focusing on commercial AI that seek to maximize profits.

Tony Duong, program manager of Stanford's Ethics and Compliance Program, is ready to answer questions and address concerns of the Stanford community to the Ethics and Compliance Helpline, including issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senior Michelle Xu's varied interests all involve a desire to understand the universe. "I was just never particularly picky about which way to figure it out," she says.

Let's say you have a small stash of face masks in your cupboard, set aside for you and your family. Meanwhile, you've read news stories highlighting the urgent PPE needs of your local hospital.

FACULTY Q&A Wild stock market gyrations and runs on toilet paper as well as other home goods might seem like acts spurred by financial and economic fear and panic.

Anna Jobin has investigated which ethics guidelines for artificial intelligence already exist, and finds that ethical AI is by no means merely a technical matter.

For many, New Year's resolutions are opportunities to make desired lifestyle changes, though 80% of resolutions fail by the second week of February.

Almost half of Americans are willing to allow a war crime - a massacre of innocent women and children - go unpunished when they believe the act was committed by soldiers fighting for a just cause.

This week we meet Lily Challenger-Rowe (right) and Sailee Khurjekar (left) - Members of the UCL ChangeMakers Decolonising the Curriculum team who are hyper-organised, uber-creative, and outspoken feminists.

Free internet access must be considered as a human right, as people unable to get online - particularly in developing countries - lack meaningful ways to influence the global players shaping their everyday lives, according to a new study.

Time is a fundamental dimension of human existence and comes in many forms. Using a comparative approach, philosopher and physicist Norman Sieroka looks at what distinguishes them, using time travel and music.

Bringing new life into the world is no easy feat, but how much do we really talk about and how much remains a taboo topic?

This doctoral dissertation investigates from a philosophical point of view the contemporary crisis in international tax law. In the past decades it has become clear how multinational corporations, and persons of considerable wealth, are organizing and planning their taxes to pay as little as possible.

The philosopher's hut is a space designed for privacy, where exile and thought go hand-in-hand.

Five University of Chicago scholars have been named 2019 Guggenheim Fellows, chosen on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.

At a time in which our society is politically polarized and divided about a myriad of issues concerning governance, immigration, and national identity, some would argue the need for convincing moral knowledge and widely accepted understandings of decency and the common good has seldom been greater.

CMU expert discusses university's role in shaping nationwide discussion This week, the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) holds a series of meetings and a public listening session at Carnegie Mellon University as the DIB explores the future of ethics and artificial intelligence. It is the second in a series of three events the DIB is hosting across the country as it looks to develop and propose principles to guide ethical and responsible use of AI by the Department of Defense (DoD), including research, development and applications.

PhD student Marion Boulicault believes in an interdisciplinary path forward for science, feminism, and philosophy.

Stanford philosopher Juliana Bidadanure is leading an initiative focused on fostering discussions about universal basic income and analyzing previous and ongoing unconditional cash experiments across the world.

Facebook Twitter Email To our university community: Today, after more than a year of work, informed by input from many of you, the Board of Trustees is unveiling a new approach to investment responsibility at Stanford.

At its Dec. 3-4 meeting, the trustees approved two statements outlining an updated approach to investment responsibility.

On November 26, NASA's InSight lander will complete its six-and-a-half month journey to Mars, touching down at Elysium Planitia, a broad plain near the Martian equator that is home to the second largest volcanic region on the planet. There, NASA scientists hope to "give the Red Planet its first thorough checkup since it formed 4.5 billion years ago," according to the InSight mission website.

Every school kid knows that Earth has a magnetic field - it's what makes compasses align north-south and lets us navigate the oceans. It also protects the atmosphere, and thus life, from the sun's powerful wind. But what about other Earth-like planets in the galaxy? Do they also have magnetic fields to protect emerging life? A new analysis looks at one type of exoplanet - super-Earths up to five times the size of our own planet - and concludes that they probably do have a magnetic field, but one generated in a totally novel way: by the planets' magma oceans.