CFP: The Ethics of Generative AI & Conversational Agents

Conference on The Ethics of Generative AI & Conversational Agents
12 & 13 September 2024, Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU)

Jointly organised by LMU's research group in the ethics of AI (Prof. Dr. Sven Nyholm, Dr. Benjamin Lange and Lara Maszynski) and the Munich Center for Machine Learning (Dr. Carina Geldhauser) 

The release of ChatGPT and DALL-E marked the beginning of the widespread use of generative AI. This technology, allowing us to create content such as text or images within seconds, now supports us with a range of tasks: from writing emails to brainstorming gift ideas, or creating art. It can support academics with writing papers, parents with entertaining their children, and it might even be used in psychiatric contexts to provide mental health advice. We also increasingly interact with conversational generative AI in communicating with virtual assistants or chatbots used in customer service.

The increasing reliance on and interaction with conversational agents and generative AI raises a host of ethical issues. In which areas, and to what extent, is it reasonable for us to rely on content provided by AI? Where does our reliance involve too great dangers? Moreover, who deserves the credit for the content created by AIs? And who should be blamed, if the created content is harmful or false?

What are some of the dangers of our increasing interaction with conversational AIs? Can we, in the first place, be truly said to interact with them? If we can’t, then what are some of the potential risks of our believing that we can interact with AIs?

This conference explores these, and other ethical issues posed by generative artificial intelligence and conversational agents. It brings together academic researchers and AI ethics practitioners to examine the ethics of generative AI in general, as well as studying the specific challenges this new technology poses in industrial settings.

Confirmed speakers include:
Alena Buyx (Technical University of Munich)
Herman Cappelen (University of Hong Kong)
Michael Klenk (Delft University of Technology)
Jana Sedlakova (University of Zurich)

We welcome submissions of abstracts in English (250-500 words) for two further talks. You will have roughly 30 minutes for your talk, followed by 30 minutes of discussion. Submissions can be on any topic relating to the ethical challenges posed by generative AI and conversational agents.

Please send your anonymised abstract to [email protected] by 15 May 2024, 1pm CET. Successful candidates will be notified by mid June. Accommodation and travel expenses will be reimbursed for selected speakers. 

We particularly encourage applications from candidates historically underrepresented in philosophy, such as women or candidates from minority ethnic backgrounds. Given two equally qualified applications, we will choose the one belonging to a candidate of a traditionally underrepresented group.

This conference is kindly sponsored by the Munich Center for Machine Learning.