ABSTRACT: "Ethical AI" and "AI for social good" are now global buzzwords—but ethical in what ways, and good for whom? I'll provide an overview of my recent work interrogating the contemporary social impacts of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) systems. Using critical design research and discursive analyses, I explore high-profile values statements endorsing ethical design for AI/ML and professional ethics codes in data science to question the grounding normative assumptions shaping our conversations around the social impacts of these computational systems. Guided by insights from science and technology studies, media studies, and the history and philosophy of technology, I advocate for expanding the "moral background" of "ethical" AI/Ml, and for broadening how practitioners understand expertise, and evidence, in these fields.

BIO: Luke Stark is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics (FATE) Group at Microsoft Research Montreal. His scholarship explores the history and contemporary social impacts of AI and other digital technologies, particularly those facilitating human social and emotional interaction. His work has been published in venues including The Information Society, Ethics & Information Technology, The International Journal of Communication, and Media, Culture, and Society. He has previously been a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Dartmouth College, a Fellow and Affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and an inaugural Fellow with the University of California Berkeley’s Center for Technology, Society, and Policy. Luke holds a PhD from the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, and an Honours BA and MA in History from the University of Toronto.