The rise of AI and super-intelligent AI raises ethical issues. AI is the power behind Google’s search engine, enables social media sites to serve up targeted advertising, gives Alexa and Siri their voices, and enables OpenAI’s ChatGPT to produce written responses from just a few prompts by the user. It is also the technology enabling self-driving vehicles, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons that can kill without direct human intervention. All of these bring up complex ethical issues that are still unresolved and will continue to be the subject of ongoing debate.
This book:
AI is much more than just a simple tool powering our smartphones or allowing us to ask Alexa about the latest cinema times. It is a technology that is, in very subtle but unmistakable ways, exerting an ever-increasing influence over our lives – and the more we use it, the more AI is altering our existence.
This book presents a concrete approach to identifying appropriate ethical principles in AI solutions.
There are untold how-to books on AI technology, replete with methods to improve and advance the statistics and algorithms of AI; however, the social, ethical, and security impacts are often a secondary consideration – if they are discussed at all.
This book explores the complex topic of AI ethics in a cross-functional way, alternating between theory and practice. Practical and recent events, and their associated challenges, are presented, such as the collateral effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the application of AI technologies. The book also gives an up-to-date overview of the potential positive and negative outcomes of AI implementations together with an analysis of AI from an ethical perspective.
Before you dive into a world populated with AI, read this book to understand the associated ethical challenges of AI technologies.
Dr. Julie Mehan is semi-retired, but is still a professor at UMGC (University of Maryland Global College), where she teaches digital ethics, cyber terrorism, and information systems in organizations.
Dr. Mehan has been a career government service employee, a strategic consultant, and an entrepreneur. She has led business operations, as well as IT governance and cybersecurity-related services, including designing and leading whitehat and blackhat penetration testing exercises, certification and accreditation, systems security engineering process improvement, and cybersecurity strategic planning and program management. She delivered cybersecurity and related privacy services to the US senior Department of Defense, federal government, and commercial clients, working in Italy, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Germany, and the US.
Dr Mehan is particularly proud of her role as former pro bono president of W2CW (Warrior to Cyber Warrior), a non-profit organization dedicated to providing cost-free cybersecurity career transition training to veterans and wounded warriors returning from military campaigns.