The AI Institute Launches Ethics Research Initiative for Robotics and AI
Dr. Kate Darling joins the Institute to lead new research team focused on ethics and societal impact of robotics and AI
Marc Raibert (left) with Dr. Kate Darling (right)
Cambridge, MA - September 26, 2023 - The AI Institute, an organization that aims to solve the most important and fundamental problems in robotics and AI, has hired Dr. Kate Darling to lead its study of ethics and societal impact. In this role, Darling will lead a team of researchers to explore key societal questions related to the development of intelligent machines.
The rapid advance of robotics and AI has created challenges with regard to public perception, technical literacy, government policy and media coverage. Scientific data are needed to ground conversations, as well as guide development of the technology. Darling’s team will explore immediate as well as long term questions on the implementation and use of robotics, impact on the workplace, infrastructure and other topics. The team will perform studies and experiments designed to generate data needed for others to make informed ethics and policy decisions, and will also develop a series of talks and workshops at the intersection of ethics, law, economics and robotics that will offer a platform for broad discussion.
“All new technologies offer opportunities and risks. Our goal in establishing the ethics team at the Institute is to maximize the opportunities that robotics and AI can offer, while minimizing the risks,” said Marc Raibert, executive director of The AI Institute. “We are excited to have Kate join our team and to bring her unique style of research and her community of researchers to help us explore and understand these important issues.”
Darling is a leading expert in technology, ethics, and policy and joins the Institute from the MIT Media Lab, where her work over the past decade focused on anticipating difficult questions that lawmakers, engineers and the wider public need to address. With a background in law and economics, Darling is a former fellow at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and the Yale Information Society Project, and is an affiliate at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.
The ethics & society team is now hiring social scientists.
About The Institute
The AI Institute aims to solve the most important and fundamental problems in robotics and AI. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the research-driven organization brings together top talent in robotics, AI, machine learning, computer science, and engineering with the goal of developing future generations of intelligent machines. The Institute works in four core areas of research: cognitive AI, athletic AI, organic hardware design and ethics and society. The Institute’s culture is designed to combine the best features of university research labs with the best features of corporate development labs. Our goal is to create the ‘Bell Labs of Robotics and AI.’ For more information, please visit: https://theaiinstitute.com/.
Press contact: press@theaiinstitute.com
