2022 colloquium — Topos Institute

2022 colloquium — Topos Institute

[David Spivak]

Dear category theorists,

Topos Institute is starting up its colloquium series again next Thursday.
This year, the colloquium topics will be more diverse, spanning four themes:
   * Applied category theory
   * Ethics and societal impact of mathematics and computer science
   * Foundation Models: Logic, Categories, and Type theory
   * Technologies and tools
For details about each of these, see the colloquium webpage:
    https://topos.site/topos-colloquium/

You can attend the talks as they occur—most Thursdays at 17:00 UTC—by
joining on zoom or by watching the livestream on YouTube; or you can watch
afterward on the Topos channel:
    https://www.youtube.com/c/ToposInstitute

If you'd like to receive reminders, you can sign up for our mailing list by
sending an email (with arbitrary=ignored content and subject line) to
    seminars+subscribe@topos.institute

Our first talk will be by David Danks, former head of the Philosophy
Department at CMU; it takes place Thursday Feb 17 at 17:00 UTC, and his
title and abstract are below. In the coming weeks we'll also have talks by
Bob Coecke and Zoé Christoff. We look forward to seeing you there!

Best regards,
David

=====
*Speaker: *David Danks
*Title: *Ethics in AI, not Ethics of AI
*Abstract: *Discussions of the ethical (and societal) impact of AI often
implicitly assume that ethical issues arise only once the AI Is deployed or
used. If AI is “just math” or “just a tool,” then one might think that
ethics is simply irrelevant to research and development of AI systems. In
contrast, I will argue that ethical issues arise throughout every step of
AI creation, including research efforts that seem to be outside of the
scope of ethics. That is, ethics is an intrinsic part of AI, not something
that arises only after the fact. Throughout this argument, I will provide
examples of practical tools and practices to improve the ethics in one’s AI
systems. These insights and examples will apply to technology development
in general, including fundamental mathematical research.
=====


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