Asilomar Revisited: Beneficial AI and the History of Scientific Ethics
About this Event
In January 2017, the Future of Life Institute assembled a group of leaders in academia and industry (including Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil, Demis Hassabis, and Sam Altman) for a landmark gathering: “The Asilomar Conference on Beneficial AI 2017”. Convened at the famed Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, CA, participants in this conference wrestled with the “opportunities and challenges” presented by the evolution of AI technologies, emerging from their deliberations with a set of 23 “Asilomar AI Principles”, intended to guide the ethical pursuit of AI “ for the benefit of humanity”.
In 2026, as issues and dilemmas concerning the responsible development of AI have only grown more timely and pressing, it is worth revisiting Beneficial AI 2017 and attempting to recover a historical context for this significant meeting.
This presentation will frame the deliberations and outcomes of the Beneficial AI 2017 conference against the backdrop of the famed 1975 Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA and DNA cloning—a watershed meeting in the history of modern science. It will explore the significance of Asilomar 1975 for actors in science, industry, government, and civil society who sought to guide the ethical pursuit of AI in 2017 and will consider the implications of the Asilomar legacy for contemporary efforts to shape the future of artificial intelligence.
David Allen Cole is the President and CEO of the Science History Institute (SHI) in Philadelphia. Prior to his tenure at SHI, he served as the Executive Director of the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware. His principal research interest is in innovation history and theory, and he is the author of The Power of Innovation, an exhibition and catalogue on the history of American invention and the U.S. patent system in the nineteenth century, presented at the National Museum of China (2018). A graduate of Vanderbilt University, he received a master’s degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in the History of Art and American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Cole has been a Henry Luce Foundation Fellow, a Research Fellow of the Learning Innovations Laboratory (LILA) of Harvard University, and has taught at Harvard University, Rice University, and the University of Texas at Austin.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 0.00
