Institute for Ethics in AI Colloquium - The False Choice Between Digital Regulation and Innovation

Institute for Ethics in AI Colloquium - The False Choice Between Digital Regulation and Innovation

The Institute is pleased to welcome Professor Anu Bradford to deliver this engaging talk, joined by commentators Dr Caroline Green, Professor Ignacio Cofone, and Professor Carl Frey, and hosted by Professor John Tasioulas.

Abstract: In her talk, Professor Anu Bradford challenges the common view that more stringent regulation of the digital economy inevitably compromises innovation and undermines technological progress. The existing technological gap between the United States and the EU should not therefore be attributed to the laxity of American laws and the stringency of European digital regulation. Instead, there are more foundational features of the American legal and technological ecosystem that have paved the way for U.S. tech companies’ rise to global prominence—features that the EU has not been able to replicate to date. By severing tech regulation from its allegedly adverse effect on innovation, Bradford seeks to advance a more productive scholarly conversation on the costs and benefits of digital regulation. It also directs governments deliberating tech policy away from a false choice between regulation and innovation while drawing their attention to a broader set of legal and institutional reforms that are necessary for tech companies to innovate and for digital economies and societies to thrive.

will bring together world-leading philosophers and other experts in the humanities with the technical developers and users of AI in academia, business and government. The ethics and governance of AI is an exceptionally vibrant area of research at Oxford and the Institute is an opportunity to take a bold leap forward from this platform.

Every day brings more examples of the ethical challenges posed by AI, from face recognition to voter profiling, brain-machine interfaces to weaponised drones, and the ongoing discourse about how AI will impact employment on a global scale. This is urgent and important work that we intend to promote internationally as well as embedding in our own research and teaching here at Oxford.

Host or Publisher Oxford University Institute for Ethics in AI