The Chimp robot, built by a Carnegie Mellon team, took third place in a competition held by DARPA last year. The school is starting a research center focused on the ethics of artificial intelligence. Credit Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Carnegie Mellon University plans to announce on Wednesday that it will create a research center that focuses on the ethics of artificial intelligence.
The ethics center, called the K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies, is being established at a time of growing international concern about the impact of A.I. technologies.
“We are at a unique point in time where the technology is far ahead of society’s ability to restrain it”
Subra Suresh, Carnegie Mellon’s president
The new center is being created with a $10 million gift from K&L Gates, an international law firm headquartered in Pittsburgh.
Peter J. Kalis, chairman of the law firm, said the potential impact of A.I. technology on the economy and culture made it essential that as a society we make thoughtful, ethical choices about how the software and machines are used.
“Carnegie Mellon resides at the intersection of many disciplines,” he said. “It will take a synthesis of the best thinking of all of these disciplines for society to define the ethical constraints on the emerging A.I. technologies.”
Source: NY Times
