Department of Philosophy

"We should be building AI systems that promote human flourishing – that allow human beings to live with dignity and purpose, and to be valued contributors to society”

What does safe artificial intelligence look like? Could AI go rogue and pose an existential threat to humanity? How have media portrayals of AI influenced people’s perceptions of the technology’s benefits and risks?

These were among the pressing questions tackled by four experts at the ��Ƶ and its partner institutions – in disciplines ranging from computer science to philosophy – during a recent panel discussion on AI safety.

Sheila McIlraith, professor in U of T’s department of computer science at the Faculty of Arts & Science and Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute, said the notion of AI safety evokes different things to different people.

“Computer scientists often think about safety critical systems – the types of systems that we’ve built to send astronauts to the moon or control our nuclear power plants – but AI safety is actually quite different,” said McIlraith, an associate director at the U of T’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society (SRI).

“For me personally, I have a higher bar, and I really think we should be building AI systems that promote human flourishing – that allow human beings to live with dignity and purpose, and to be valued contributors to society.”

The event, hosted by SRI in partnership with the Vector Institute, the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology, the Centre for Ethics and Victoria College, invited McIlraith and her fellow panelists to discuss how AI technologies can be aligned with human values in an increasingly automated world.

They also discussed how risks surrounding the technology can be mitigated in different sectors.

Karina Vold, the event’s moderator, underscored the challenge of building safe AI systems in an uncertain world (photo by Duane Cole)

Moderator, Karina Vold, assistant professor in the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, noted that because AI systems operate “in a world filled with uncertainty and volatility, the challenge of building safe and reliable AI is not easy and mitigation strategies vary widely.”

She proceeded to ask the panel to share their thoughts on the portrayal of AI in popular culture.

“The media devotes more attention to different aspects of AI – the social, philosophical, maybe even psychological,” said Sedef Kocak, director of AI professional development at the Vector Institute.

“These narratives are important to help show the potential fears, as well as the positive potential of the technology.”

The discussion touched on several topics related to AI safety (photo by Duane Cole)

Roger Grosse, associate professor in U of T’s department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and a founding member of the Vector Institute, said that safety concerns around AI are not merely rooted in science and pop culture, but also in philosophy.

“Many people think that the public’s concerns regarding AI risks come from sci-fi, but I think the early reasoning regarding AI risks actually has its roots in philosophy,” said Grosse, who also holds Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society.

“If we’re trying to reason about AI systems that don’t yet exist, we don’t have the empirical information, and don’t yet know what their design would be, what we can do is come up with various thought experiments. For example, what if we designed an AI that has some specific role, and all of the actions that it takes are in service of the role?

“For the last decade, a lot of the reasons for being concerned about the long-term existential risks really came from this careful philosophical reasoning.”

The discussion also touched on the dangers of AI models misaligning themselves, how to guard against bias in the training of large language models, and how to ensure that AI models with potentially catastrophic capabilities are safeguarded.

“This [safeguarding] is an area where new research ideas and principles will be required to make the case,” said Grosse. “Developers saying, ‘Trust us’ is not sufficient. It’s not a good foundation for policy.”

Despite addressing topics surrounding potential harms and risks of AI, the panelists also shared their optimism about how AI can be wielded for the greater good – with Grosse noting AI offers the promise of making knowledge more widely accessible, and Kocak focusing on the myriad benefits for industries.

Watch the Sept. 10 conversation below:

'Completely misunderstood' – Arthur Ripstein explores Immanuel Kant's views on war

lanthierj — Thu, 29 Apr 2021 10:57:11 +0000

'Completely misunderstood' – Arthur Ripstein explores Immanuel Kant's views on war

lanthierj Thu, 04/29/2021 - 06:57

Sean McNeely

Topic

City & Culture

Books

Department of Philosophy

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Law

Humanities

A colleague of Arthur Ripstein once described the 18^th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant as “the philosopher for people who like philosophy too much.”

Ripstein freely admits to belonging to this group. He’s spent decades researching and teaching Kantian legal and political philosophy and is currently finishing his latest book about the philosopher, Kant and the Law of War. It will be available in September.

Immanuel Kant (Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images)

“My aim with this book is to develop Kant’s actual views about war – he offers a novel perspective on the grounds of going to war, the conduct of war and what happens at the end of the war,” says Ripstein, a University Professor of law and philosophy.

“Over the last 30 years we have seen the emergence of new types of war. And people have said we need a different way of thinking about it. Kant’s work is often referred to by people taking pretty much any position at all in debates about war, but his views have been completely misunderstood.

“Pretty much everything is wrong with war, and that makes it hard to think about it systematically,” he says. “Obviously, the fact that lots of people die and things are destroyed and lives are disrupted is something that’s wrong with war.”

But that can also happen by other means, such as earthquakes, floods and natural disasters. “So the question is whether there's something extra wrong with war. Kant has a view about what is distinctively wrong with war, that it is the condition in which force decides everything – which side prevails does not depend on who is in the right.”

Throughout history and particularly in the Middle Ages in Europe, many people, including thinkers as serious as Dante believed that winning a war was a sign that you were right, that success in war was an endorsement from God.

Ripstein says that allowing force to decide things could be described as war’s “distinctive immorality.”

“In order to address that immorality, war has to have a distinctive morality governing it,” he says. “And so the thought is that by thinking about what's distinctively wrong with war, as the condition in which force decides everything, we get insights from Kant into what could ever be an acceptable grounds for engaging in war, the ways in which wars can be conducted, and what the moral and legal consequences of the end of a war are.”

Ripstein’s book also brings Kant’s work to present day, as he discusses new kinds of wars that currently plague the world, including wars of secession and wars involving loosely organized transnational organizations. He also explains the distinctive role of public legal institutions, both domestic and international.

“Since 1945, we've had the United Nations and international institutions that are morally and legally significant,” says Ripstein, adding that Kant was an early advocate of these types of groups long before they came into existence.

The book ends with a discussion about cosmopolitanism – the belief that all people are entitled to equal respect and consideration, no matter their citizenship status – exploring Kant’s view that public legal institutions play a key role in mediating human relations.

A testament to the influence and importance of Kant and the Law of War for fellow scholars, another book, The Public Uses of Coercion and Force will be released this summer. It will feature contributions from leading political theorists, philosophers and legal scholars who reflect on the major themes addressed in Ripstein’s book.

“I think Kant offers a powerful way of making moral sense of the world,” says Ripstein. “There are fundamental distinctions that organize not just philosophy or moral thought, but our fundamental orientation within the world. Kantian philosophy starts with these most basic ideas and tries to work through them systematically. I think it's intellectually thrilling.”

For his contributions to philosophy, Ripstein was recently awarded the prestigious Killam Prize by the Canada Council for the Arts. The prize recognizes select Canadian researchers who have achieved international scholarly eminence in their fields and is considered one of the most distinguished recognitions a Canadian scholar can receive.

“When I won the prize, my immediate response was to contact my mentors to thank them for all of the support they had given me early in my career,” says Ripstein.

"One of the peculiarities about a discipline like legal philosophy is that some of the most supportive things take the form of disagreement. I was thrilled that one of my former teachers, still teaching at age 87, told me he was excited to announce my prize to his class. His planned lecture for that day was on why I was wrong about everything!

“It is difficult to think of a greater honour.”

Johanna Thoma tackles decision theory, from how we live our lives to how public policy gets decided

rasbachn — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 04:00:00 +0000

Johanna Thoma tackles decision theory, from how we live our lives to how public policy gets decided

rasbachn Thu, 09/07/2017 - 00:00

Cutline

Thoma won the Governor General's Gold Medal for her "groundbreaking" dissertation on decision theory (photo courtesy of Governor General's office)

Jovana Jankovic

Author legacy

Jovana Jankovic

Topic

Remember This Name

Alumni

Department of Philosophy

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Humanities

International

Subheadline

Thoma now teaches at the London School of Economics

"Should I resist this temptation when it really seems best to me right now to give in? Should I stop procrastinating right now even though I know that another minute on this blog won’t make me miss my deadline or make my paper noticeably worse?"

These are the kind of perplexing yet universally familiar questions that U of T alumna Johanna Thoma pores over in her work in a branch of philosophy known as decision theory. The practical applications of Thoma’s work are wide-ranging, from electoral politics (who to vote for) to consumer choice and marketing (what to buy) to psychology, sociology, ethics, and beyond (how we should live our lives).

Upon completing her PhD at U of T’s department of philosophy in 2017, Thoma won the Governor General’s Gold Medal for her "groundbreaking" dissertation on decision theory. She has since moved to the United Kingdom to join the London School of Economics' department of philosophy, logic and scientific method as an assistant professor.

Thoma is part of a new generation of thinkers transforming research across the globe. They come from all corners of the world to do their PhD or postdoctoral research at the ��Ƶ, drawn by the chance to work with the leading experts in their fields.

Where do they go from here?

In the 12th instalment of a series from U of T News, we turn the spotlight on Thoma. Below, she talks about her time at U of T, why she finds decision theory so fascinating, and how it affects problems both small (procrastination) and large (how policy-makers tackle climate change).

You came to Toronto after studying in Oxford and the Netherlands. What was it that initially drew you here for your doctoral studies?

My undergraduate studies and my master's were interdisciplinary (philosophy and economics). That was fascinating, but it also made my philosophy education a little bit narrow – I had mostly studied ethics, political philosophy and philosophy of science. While those were the areas I thought I probably wanted to work in, I also thought I should get some more general philosophy training if I wanted to be an academic philosopher. That’s why I applied to North American PhD programs. Toronto stood out because it looked excellent across the board. At least it had people I had read and whose work I liked in all areas of philosophy I knew anything about. So it seemed great for the undecided like me. There wasn’t anybody in particular I knew I wanted to work with.

In the end it’s a very personal decision where you want to study, work and spend five years of your life. When I visited the department, my first impression was that the philosophical discussions happening there were inspiring, the faculty were extremely supportive and personable, and that the graduate community would make me feel at home. And that impression proved right: I had a wonderful time in Toronto, both personally and academically. I certainly couldn’t have imagined a better PhD committee than the one I ended up with.

One other personal factor that played into my decision was that I actually have some family in and around Toronto, since my Dutch grandmother’s brother emigrated to Canada after the Second World War. Graduate school can be quite tough, and it was nice to have family to turn to, and to cook me my first Thanksgiving dinner.

What was your favourite thing about the city of Toronto, outside of the university?

Oh, so many things! Raccoons, walking in the ravine, cycling in the dead of winter dressed like I am going on a North Pole expedition, the coffee houses, the art and design, beer in pitchers, breakfast all day, 24-hour bagel places, 7-days-a-week karaoke places, funky-looking libraries, and more free stuff on my birthday than any other city I ever celebrated it in. Also, you can get into a car and drive to places more remote than anywhere in central Europe within just a few hours.

Your work in decision theory seems very applicable to everyone, anywhere, in many situations. What initially got you interested in this field? What do you think are some of the most interesting practical applications of your work? Do you connect your work to your personal life when you think about making decisions for yourself?

As an undergraduate, studying philosophy alongside economics got me puzzled about the conceptual underpinnings of the theory of rational decision-making at the basis of economics, namely expected utility theory. I was very excited when I found out that there is a branch of philosophy that critically explores this and other theories of practical rationality. What kept me interested in this area of philosophy, once I delved into it, is that it has this rare combination of being at once highly relevant to ordinary life while at the same time raising the kinds of seemingly irresolvable philosophical puzzles that hurt your brain and keep you up at night – which is the drug that got most of us into philosophy in the first place.

They are questions like these: Should I resist this temptation when it really seems best to me right now to give in? Should I stop procrastinating right now even though I know that another minute on this blog won’t make me miss my deadline or make my paper noticeably worse? How should I choose when, whichever option I consider, another available option seems better? Should I wear my bicycle helmet today when the risk of accident today seems worth taking, but the risk I would be running over the year by never wearing my helmet seems recklessly high?

It’s easy to connect these questions to my own life. While I am resigned to the fact that I am hopelessly irrational myself, at least I came to the tentative conclusion that rationality is more permissive than I learned as an undergraduate in economics.

The examples I just gave are of course quite mundane, but they have real relevance on a policy level as well. For instance, you only need to look at climate policy to see that policy-makers, too, are prone to procrastinating. One problem I am particularly interested in is that what it seems best to do often crucially depends on whether you look at one choice in isolation, or consider it as part of a package of choices, or a course of action over time. This observation is especially relevant for policy-makers, who could potentially adopt very long time horizons when deciding on policies, but often adopt short ones, or who could potentially consider each policy as part of a larger package of policies, but often consider them piecemeal.

If evaluating each policy in isolation rather than cumulatively makes a big difference to what policies are chosen, is that problematic? If yes, how should we deal with this problem? While I haven’t written specifically on such policy applications yet, this is one of the directions in which I want to take my research. The policy context certainly also raises some distinct challenges compared to the personal context.

You were offered the position of assistant professor at LSE, ranked the No. 7 philosophy department in the world by QS, before you finished your PhD. What has it been like so far in your first year at LSE? Were there any experiences at Toronto that you found particularly useful in transitioning to LSE?

Well, having to finish up my PhD thesis very quickly after I was offered the job was certainly very good preparation for having to write my first lectures very quickly once I started it! I was extremely lucky, of course, not only to get a secure job so soon, but also one that allows me to remain in as active and inspiring an academic community as I was in during my graduate studies. There is exciting research happening all around me, and there are lots of people to talk to about my own work.

LSE is probably the place in the world with the biggest concentration of people working on very similar things as I am. The first year of teaching on a faculty teaching load while juggling administrative duties, research, and adjusting to a new city was tough, of course. But Toronto prepared me well for it in several ways. Most importantly, coming from such a supportive environment helped me have the strength to deal with it. Another thing in particular that was useful was that there are many inspiring female faculty at Toronto who were great role models. Lecturing in a male-dominated field as a young woman, it can be tough to retain authority while maintaining a positive learning environment. U of T provided me with great examples of how to do it.

Lastly, an interesting parallel between U of T and the LSE is that, in terms of their student bodies, they are two of the most ethnically and culturally diverse universities in the world. And so TA-ing at U of T prepared me well for teaching at LSE in that regard. You can’t assume as much by way of common background beliefs, but that is actually a really good thing for philosophical discussion. You start from a blank slate, and you get more interesting perspectives along the way.