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AI Ethics (PHIL404) examines the normative, epistemic, and metaphysical questions raised by artificial intelligence and robotics. The course begins with debates in the philosophy of mind over machine intelligence, including the Turing test, the distinction between strong and weak AI, and whether syntactic computation can ever give rise to genuine understanding or intentionality. It then turns to applied questions of justice and responsibility: algorithmic bias and its implications for fairness and nondiscrimination, the epistemic opacity of machine learning systems, the problem of attributing moral and legal accountability for automated decisions, and the demands of procedural justice when algorithms govern access to rights and resources. Further units address the value alignment problem, the moral status of artificial systems as potential moral agents or moral patients, the threat that deepfakes pose to testimony and epistemic trust, the possibility of phenomenal consciousness in machines, and the ethics of existential risk. Through rigorous philosophical analysis and real-world cases, students develop the conceptual resources to evaluate claims about AI and to assess the obligations of designers, institutions, and societies in governing these technologies.

 

 

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