CELS Lunchtime Seminar: 'Beyond Meaningless Human Control: The Contribution of European Union Law to a Deep Notion of Control over Artificial Intelligence'

Speaker: Professor Thomas Burri, University of St.Gallen, Switzerland 

About the Speaker: Thomas Burri is an assistant professor of international law and European law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland where he also directs the program “Master of Arts in International Law”. His most recent research has been published in the Research Handbook on the Law of AI (Barfield/Pagallo eds.) and the German Yearbook of International Law. He inter alia participated as a legal expert in the IEEE’s initiative to address the ethics of AI. Recently, he gave talks about various aspects of AI and law/ethics at the universities of Princeton, Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge in 2017. Contact: thomas.burri@unisgh.ch, web: www.thomas-burri.com

Abstract: The talk will address the topic of control over artificial intelligence. Control has turned out to be one of the key ethical/legal dimensions of autonomous systems (incl. AI systems). However, it has proven difficult to find a universally agreeable conception of control. The discussions in Geneva about autonomous weapons systems within CCW, for instance, seem to have reached a deadlock with the notion of “meaningful human control”. At the moment, the broader discussions about control are disciplinarily entrenched in the sense that not one discipline feels naturally called upon to show the way forward. Computer scientists are waiting for social scientists to come up with a workable proposal – and vice versa.  The talk to be given draws on at least 2000 years of experience of the law with control and delegation, thus coming at the topic from a position of strength. More specifically, it will look to EU law as it stands and identify situations of control to find inspiration and guidance for how to conceive and deepen the notion of control over AI. The talk at the same time provides a snapshot of where we stand in the regulation of AI and autonomous systems.

Those attending may also be interested in Professor Burri's paper on “International Law and Artificial Intelligence” , since the talk will further develop argument no. 4 made in the paper

Enquiries to: cels@law.cam.ac.uk