David Danks on causality, human-technology interaction, and ethics of autonomous systems

David Danks is a professor of philosophy and psychology and head of the department of philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. His research lies at the intersection of philosophy, cognitive science, and machine learning, with a recent focus on the ethics of and policy for autonomous systems such as self-driving vehicles and autonomous warfare. David is the author of Unifying the Mind: Cognitive Representations as Graphical Models, as well as, Building Theories: Heuristics and Hypotheses in Science.

In our conversation with David, we cover: his journey into philosophy, learning models, causality, the impact of information overload on human cognition, and the role of trust in human-technology adoption cycles. David also shares his views on ethics and policy considerations for autonomous systems, and how we might think about agency and sovereignty for artificial intelligence-based systems.

About and from Prof. David Danks:

• Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/philosophy/people/faculty/danks.html 
• Publications: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/ddanks/pubs.html
• Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=david+danks&btnG=

Research:

• A Theory of Causal Learning in Children: Causal Maps and Bayes Nets
• Equilibria of the Recorla-Wagner Model
• The Psychology of Causal Perception and Reasoning
• Algorithmic Bias in Autonomous Systems

Assorted Links:

• Institute for Strategic Analysis: https://www.cmu.edu/isa/isa-people/faculty_affiliates/david-danks.html 
• The Center for Informed Democracy and Social Cybersecurity: https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2019/july/knight-foundation-disinformation.html 

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Music:

• Music used in this podcast: Simplex Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com): Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

• Chipper Doodle Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com): Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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