Ethics in AI Design
Highlights
AI systems have a great potential to improve society, across a wide range of applications. The challenge is to do so responsibly. AI systems can lead to discrimination, loss of human control and a lack of explainability, to name a few ethical dilemmas they may present. Because of the great impact that AI and Machine Learning has (e.g. ChatGPT by OpenAI, or the use of ML for medical diagnoses), we need to ensure that we design and use them in a way that meets ethical standards.
To do this requires a pro-active attitude towards ethics, for which we use the Delft Design for Values methodology. This identifies ethical values and has tools to translate them into concrete design requirements, which can then be tested. For this course, the focus is on aligning programming and design decisions with ethical values.
This course is for professionals developing AI systems, or for managers overseeing AI developments. The Design for Values methodology offers guidance on how to tackle the wide range of ethical challenges in the design process of AI systems. You will learn about bias, transparency, control, accountability, trust, and more. There will be a focus on the connection between the technological tools available and the ethical values. Most of all, you will practice how to make AI Ethics actionable and applicable for a wide range of systems and use cases.
To learn how to put ethics into practice we will use a running example from AI in healthcare. You will be challenged to think about how best to design an AI system in this context, while taking important ethical values into account. We will also work with other use cases from various sectors, such as government or industry, to see how ethical values and their consequences change from situation to situation.
This course has been designed by TU Delft's experts on Digital Ethics, who hold a world-leading position in the operationalization of ethics in digital technology. They have played a central role in setting the EU directives on ethics, as well as the WHO Guidelines on AI Ethics in healthcare, and will now help you to put ethics into practice.
