Moshe Y. Vardi: “Technology Is Driving the Future, but Who Is Steering?”
"In this year’s Gödel lecture, Moshe Vardi will explain why the ethical lens is too narrow for dealing with technology’s impact on society."
May 27th 2021
- 17:00 – 19:00 CEST
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This is an online-only event.
See description for details.
On This Page
- Speaker: Moshe Y. Vardi, Rice University, USA
About the Event
May 27, 2021
5:00 – 7:00 PM
(17:00) CET
More details at https://informatics.tuwien.ac.at/news/2020.
Abstract
The benefits of computing are intuitive. Computing yields tremendous societal benefits; for example, the life-saving potential of driverless cars is enormous. But computing is not a game—it is real—and it brings with it not only societal benefits but also significant societal costs, such as labor polarization, disinformation, and smartphone addiction.
The common reaction to this crisis is to label it as an “ethical crisis”, and the proposed response is to add courses in ethics to the academic computing curriculum. This talk will argue that the ethical lens is too narrow. The real issue is how to deal with technology’s impact on society. Technology is driving the future, but who is doing the steering? Moshe Vardi will show how these issues relate to the Vienna Circle and the recently declared Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism.