AI Ethics Lab Explores Impacts of the Technology’s Rapid Growth
A global research initiative has emerged at Rutgers–Camden to tackle the pressing ethical challenges and opportunities posed by the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, or AI.
Launched last fall, the AI Ethics Lab, housed in the Digital Studies Center under the Department of English and Communication, examines artificial intelligence’s ethical and legal implications across the AI life cycle, from what kind of data is collected to the monitoring of this emerging technology.
Leading the charge is Lecturer of Philosophy and Religion Nathan C. Walker, a First Amendment and human-rights expert with an international AI research pedigree and experience working with one of the world’s leading AI platforms.
“Studying civil liberties and human rights uniquely positions me to identify where AI can go wrong,” Walker said. “If we go back to the basics—our core principles and our core values—we can actually remind humanity that eight decades of human-rights law have prepared us for this moment.”
Walker has conducted AI research with the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence in Munich, Germany and the Stellenbosch University in South Africa; both institutions now collaborate with the AI Ethics Lab.
Rutgers–Camden undergraduates in programs from political science to pre-med have also signed on to work with Walker’s team. “The students are all deeply concerned about AI's impact on society, and they each take that very seriously within their own domain,” he said. “If they want to go to law school in the future, if they want to be a medical doctor, if they want to engage in digital studies or environmental studies, they each bring their own ethical questions to how AI could impact their sector of society.”
One of the lab’s first projects is the AI & Human Rights Index, an open-source framework evaluating AI’s impact on human rights violations and advancements across the globe. Rutgers–Camden’s student researchers are sourcing legal, technical, and ethical terms to build a comprehensive glossary with applications for responsible AI use worldwide.
“This research gives students an incredible opportunity to work with international colleagues,” Walker said. “It's just been an extraordinary opportunity to connect our talented students in Camden with this global network of experts from around the world.”
Aadith Muthukumar, a first-year student from California studying applied and computational mathematics, joined the lab to explore AI’s applications in law as he hopes to one day pursue a legal career. As a research assistant, the Honors College student serves as a facilitator between the Rutgers–Camden contingent and the lab’s editors abroad.
Muthukumar emphasized the impact of the team’s work in developing the AI & Human Rights Index platform. “Because this project is so large, creating a baseline is fundamental to further developing the research later down the road,” he said.
The researchers’ ultimate goal is to present to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. The lab is also working on an AI assistant concept called Project Insight and research on AI ethics and the law that inspired Walker’s forthcoming book Moral Imagination, due out later this year.
Walker’s work draws on his role as an expert AI trainer in law and education for OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, in both his research and teaching. He is one of close to 1,000 trainers around the globe working on AI models not yet in the public domain. Walker said the experience has undoubtedly shaped his teaching and research philosophy. “Because I can kind of see under the hood to understand the ethics behind it, and the teams that I'm working with are deeply committed to that, it makes me feel very hopeful and excited by what kinds of solutions we can offer at this really formative stage,” he said.
He believes the AI Ethics Lab’s dual-ethic approach to prevent harm and do good will respond to AI naysayers’ concerns while casting a larger vision. “We can help be the meaning makers on the global stage by focusing our efforts on not only harm prevention, but also moving AI companies and its regulators on focusing on how AI could actually advance human rights in unprecedented ways,” he said.
