With a bit of a delay, we are starting to upload the videos of our seminar’s talks. The Inaugural Meeting of our seminar was devoted to a wonderful talk by Dr. Annette Zimmermann. I highly recommend watching the video, and following up with some additional reading (some pointers below).
I won’t try to summarize the talk because I doubt that I can do it justice, but one of the themes (which I fully support) is that it is not enough to consider “fair” implementations of specific tasks. Instead, we (also) want to explore the right task to implement and if it is appropriate to implement any algorithmic task in any specific context.
As a side note, I loved Annette’s statement on ethics, “if we can choose, we’re on the hook.” For me, it beautifully complements the paradigm that “ought implies can.” In other words, ethical imperatives only exist when the expected action is possible but every choice has ethical implications.
Some resources for additional reading.
Resources on exploitation
Introductory / very accessible for an interdisciplinary audience
Nicholas Vrousalis, “Exploitation: A Primer,” Philosophy Compass 13, no. 2 (2018).
Background
G.A. Cohen, “The Labor Theory of Value and the Concept of Exploitation,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 8, no. 4 (1979): 338–360.
Joel Feinberg, Harmless Wrongdoing, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1988).`
Robert E. Goodin, “Exploiting a Situation and Exploiting a Person,” in Andrew Reeve (ed.), Modern Theories of Exploitation, London: Sage (1987), 166–200.
Ruth Sample, Exploitation, What It Is and Why it is Wrong, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield (2003).
Nicholas Vrousalis, “Exploitation, Vulnerability, and Social Domination,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 41, no. 2 (2013): 131–157.
Alan Wertheimer, Exploitation, Princeton: Princeton University Press (1996).
Iris Marion Young, “Five Faces of Oppression,” in Thomas Wartenberg (ed.), Rethinking Power, Albany, NY: SUNY Press (1992).
Resource on the political philosophy of AI (for a general audience)
Annette Zimmermann, Elena Di Rosa, Hochan Kim, “Technology Can’t Fix Algorithmic Injustice, Boston Review