Research center on ethics of artificial intelligence is created with $10M grant from BigLaw firm
Should the United States create robotic war weapons that decide on their own whether to kill?
That’s the type of question involving the intersection of ethics and artificial intelligence that could be considered by a new research center funded with a $10 million gift from K&L Gates, the New York Times reports. The center at Carnegie Mellon University will be called the K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies.
The center will use the money to create two endowed chairs for faculty members and three presidential scholarships for doctoral students, according to a press release. It will also host a biennial international conference to share research.
K&L Gates chairman and global managing partner Peter Kalis said in the press release that the ethical questions involve the intersection of law and technology. “As a society,” he said, “our ethical choices in this field will greatly influence what kind of world we will have. Its values. Its culture. Its laws. And, ultimately, its humanity.”
The father of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, William Gates Sr., was a partner at K&L Gates before his retirement.
