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Summary
Almost two decades after dropping out of Harvard to found Facebook, Meta CEO Mark E. Zuckerberg returned with Priscilla Chan, bearing half-a-billion dollars and a new Harvard institute to match. For Harvard, which has sometimes lagged behind more traditional leaders in AI, this is an opportunity to leap forward in an important area of research. In no other field would we wish to require that every new initiative include space for researching ethics. Of course, this puts a great burden on our researchers to hold themselves to the highest ethical standards in an area where doing so requires particularly critical thinking and unusual restraint.
Show Notes
The Kempner Institute will study natural and artificial intelligence, operating at the confluence of two fields that have often been studied in isolation.
We acknowledge concerns that the institute seems broadly unconcerned with exploring pressing and complex issues in the field of AI ethics.
But these concerns don’t warrant icing the Kempner Institute.
In fact, there may be a silver lining in Zuckerberg and Chan’s neglect of AI ethics research.
But the Kempner institute will do necessary research with extraordinary potential for good.
Source
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/10/4/editorial-ai-kempner/