Throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, visions of the future often portrayed household robots and various other modern conveniences as greatly improving the quality of people’s lives through increased leisure, improved productivity and health, and more quality time with friends and family. While some of these predictions have been true, there has also been an emergence of a darker kind of technology–such as those used to undermine individuals’ best efforts, trick them into spending money or time doing certain kinds of unproductive activities, to manipulate people’s insecurities so that they will be vulnerable to persuasion, or turn people against each other for another party’s benefit. These algorithms are not one-offs but have become invisibly integrated into the very fabric of the digital apps and architectures that deliver the conveniences we have come to rely on for the purposes of exploitation. While researchers have decried the rise of so-called “dark patterns” (which remain unregulated), we believe there is a broader–and more problematic–lack of consideration of how systems treat people.
In this talk, we summarise recent research from Human-Centred AI at the Department of Computer Science to suggest that the current enthusiasm and resources placed on “AI Safety” at an international scale should embrace a bigger picture, going beyond “doing no harm” to instead designing systems that will treat people with the respect they deserve.
Speaker: Max Van Kleek is Associate Professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford, LGBTQ+ Fellow of Kellogg College, and Research Fellow of the Oxford Martin School. Max co-leads the Human Centred AI Research Theme at the Department of Computer Science, where his research focuses on extended digital cognition, privacy, and individual empowerment: helping people survive in an increasingly complex, digitally-mediated world. He has over 20 years of research experience at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction and AI, and has served as a researcher at MIT CSAIL, MIT Media Lab, (Xerox) PARC, IBM Research, and Nokia, and led 2 UKRI research grants under the £13.8m PETRAS Project (Privacy Ethics Trust Reliability Accountability and Security). He has recently become the co-founding CTO of Veer Technologies, an Oxford spinout based in London seeking to ethically inspire and empower everyone to make better career choices.
Chair: Leandra Brauninger
This in-person event is free and open to all. Refreshments will be served from 5.00 pm, followed by the talk at 5.30 pm. There will be a Q&A session after the talk and a drinks reception.
Bletchley Park Week:
This event is part of our annual Bletchley Park Week programme of events celebrating a partnership between Oxford and Bletchley Park.
Please note:
This event may be photographed and filmed. If you do not wish to appear in the photographs/footage, please let the photographer/videographer know.
