Applying Insights from Ethics and Philosophy to Reduce Bias in AI with John Basl

In this week’s Faculty Friday video, John Basl, Associate Professor at Northeastern University and faculty member at the Institute for Experiential, describes how he applies principles from philosophy to advance technical artificial intelligence research with ethics at the core – helping scientists answer the question: “What does it mean for my algorithm to be biased?”

Biography

John is an associate professor of philosophy whose work is primarily in applied or practical ethics, including the ethics of AI and emerging technologies. Much of John’s work focuses on building effective ethics oversight and integrating theoretical resources from philosophical ethics into the design and development of Machine Learning applications. He teaches courses in moral philosophy, ethics of technology, and ethics in scientific research.

John is the co-author of Building Data and AI Ethics Committees published with Accenture and Getting from Commitment to Content in AI and Data Ethics: Justice and Explainability published with the Atlantic Council. Other recent work includes contributions to the Oxford Handbook of AI Ethics on AI as a moral rights-holder and the forthcoming volume Autonomous Vehicle Ethics: Beyond the Trolley Problem.

John’s work with a collaborative team building an engineering ethics curriculum has been recognized as an Exemplary Engineering Ethics Program by the National Academy of Engineering Center for Engineering Ethics and Society. He is currently a co-PI on a National Science Foundation grant integrating ethics into the development of co-working autonomous robots in seafood processing.