Rome Call for AI Ethics: A Global University Summit

Summit Details and Additional Resources

Agenda

October 25, 2022

2:00-6:00 PM: Registration, Eck Visitors Center

3:00-4:15 PM: University of Notre Dame campus tour, departing from Eck Visitors Center

Summit Day 1: October 26, 2022, McKenna Hall

8:00–9:00 AM: Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:00–9:30 AM: Welcome and Opening Remarks

9:30–10:00 AM: Keynote by Pascale Fung, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology: "Who is Responsible for Responsible AI?"

10:00–11:00 AM: Panel discussion moderated by Rev. Paolo Benanti, TOR, Extraordinary Professor of Moral Theology, Bioethics, Neuroethics, and Ethics of Technologies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and Rev. Andrea Ciucci, Coordinating Secretary of the Pontifical Academy for Life

11:15–11:45 AM: Keynote by Casey Fiesler, University of Colorado Boulder: "AI Ethics for All: A Broader Perspective on AI Education"

11:45 AM–12:45 PM: Panel discussion moderated by Kirsten Martin, Director of the Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center, William P. and Hazel B. White Center Professor of Technology Ethics, and  Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame

1:45–2:15 PM: Keynote by Alpesh Shah, IEEE: "Trustworthy & Responsible AI Considerations: Principles | Policies | Practice"

2:15–3:15 PM: Panel discussion moderated by Betsy Greytok, Vice President, Ethics and Policy at IBM

3:30–4:30 PM: University Leadership Roundtables | Poster Session

4:30–5:00 PM: Plenary session: Reflection and Next Steps

7:00-9:00 PM: Dinner session hosted by the Pontifical Academy for Life

Summit Day 2: October 27, 2022, McKenna Hall

8:00–9:00 AM: Continental Breakfast

9:00–10:00 AM: Keynote by Luciano Floridi, University of Oxford: "Ethics-Based Auditing of AI: What It Is and Why It Matters"

10:15 AM–12:15 PM: Signing Ceremony

12:15–12:45 PM: Closing Remarks

3:00-4:15 PM: University of Notre Dame campus tour, departing from Eck Visitors Center

Keynote Speakers

Pascale Fung is a Chair Professor at the Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST), and a visiting professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. She is an elected Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), an elected Fellow of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), an Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and an elected Fellow of the International Speech Communication Association. She is the Director of HKUST Centre for AI Research (CAiRE), an interdisciplinary research centre on top of all four schools at HKUST. She is the Distinguished Consultant for Responsible AI at Meta. She is an expert on the Global Future Council, a think tank for the World Economic Forum. She represents HKUST on Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society. She is on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. She is a member of the IEEE Working Group to develop an IEEE standard - Recommended Practice for Organizational Governance of Artificial Intelligence. Her research team has won several best and outstanding paper awards at ACL, ACL and NeurIPS workshops.

Casey Fiesler is an Associate Professor of Information Science at University of Colorado Boulder. Much of her research focuses on technology ethics and policy, notably research ethics for data science, data privacy, technological harms towards marginalized groups, content moderation, and ethical speculation in research and design. She is also an expert on ethics education in computing fields, and has conducted a number of research projects related to current pedagogical strategies and practices, in addition to curriculum development. Her work has been funded by Mozilla's Responsible Computer Science Challenge, the Omidyar Network, and the National Science Foundation, including an NSF CAREER grant. Her research has also been covered everywhere from The New York Times to Teen Vogue, and she is a prolific public scholar who is passionate about educating the public about technology ethics, whether it's in a WIRED op ed or on TikTok. She holds a PhD in Human-Centered Computing from Georgia Tech and a JD from Vanderbilt Law School.

Alpesh Shah serves as the Senior Director of Global Business Strategy & Intelligence at the IEEE Standards Association, where his focus is on organizational growth and advancements of ecosystems towards sustainable and scalable standardized outcomes in an accelerated fashion. Given the strategic and impact oriented focus, his portfolio also includes supporting trustworthy children’s online and offline experiences, addressing sustainability and climate change, among other critical intersections to  better support future-affirming technological  experiences. Alpesh has served as an active UNICEF advisory group expert, a member of the AI Commons, the People-Centered Internet, a contributor to a number of multi-stakeholders frameworks and collaborations; and he has functioned as qn expert to T7 think tank on sustainability and contributor to CEN/CENELEC initiatives related to Children’s Data Governance and others. Alpesh has spoken at a number of conferences, fora,and to expert groups, including  AI for Good, OECD Going Digital Steering Group, the IEEE SA’s Digital Inclusion, Identity and Trust in Agency workshops on Children Online/Offline Experiences, and is an often requested speaker and panelist on topics at the intersection of technology, scalable businesses and related governance  perspectives. Prior to joining the IEEE, Alpesh worked as a trusted advisor to and for a number of organizations in various industries with a focus on organizational growth. Alpesh holds an MBA from The University of Chicago with concentrations in Strategy, Marketing, and Finance; MSc in IT Project Management from DePaul University, and a BSc in Computer Science from Loyola University Chicago. In his spare time, he volunteers with Special Spectators, a non-profit committed to providing seriously ill children and their families a special day through sporting events across the United States.

Luciano Floridi is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford and Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication, Department of Legal Studies, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, where he directs the Centre for Digital Ethics.

Moderators

Rev. Paolo Benanti, T.O.R. started his academic career in mechanical engineering before entering the Franciscan order and pursuing theology and philosophy. He holds a doctorate in moral theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University and won the university’s Vedovato Award for his dissertation “The Cyborg: Corpo e corporeità nell’epoca del postumano.” His research focuses on the management of innovation, particularly as it relates to the internet and the impact of the Digital Age, biotechnologies for human improvement and biosecurity, and neuroscience and neurotechnology. Among his many publications is the ebook Homo Faber: The Techno-Human Condition (EDB 2018).

Rev. Andrea Ciucci is a catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Milan. After receiving his Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from the Northern Italy School of Theology, he earned a PhD in Philosophy from the St. Anselm Institute in Rome, with a thesis on the reconsideration given in the twentieth century to Plato’s concept of the Chora (Il fascino  di Chora, Mimesis 2019). He is member of AISFT (Italian Association for Philosophy and Theology Studies) and he publishes on its review Filosofia e Teologia. For more than twenty-five years, he has been active in catechetic, family pastoral care, youth work and scouting. As part of this activity, he has published various articles and related works, among which more than twenty religious books for children and teenagers. At present, he lives and works in Rome, where he is the COO of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Vatican City. In that capacity, among other things he is responsible for institutional relations and cultural projects. He is also General Secretary of “renAIssance” Foundation, a Vatican institution dedicated to promote an ethics perspective in Artificial Intelligence. He teaches Family Pastoral Care at the ISSR in Florence and Bologna and at the Pontifical Theological Institute John Paul II forSciences of Marriage and Family in Rome. He is the author of several columns in various Italian magazines dealing with the influence of new technologies on human life, families and youth, with a particular attention to ethical consequences. His hobby is cooking, and he has been successful both in the kitchen and in publishing. He has written an anthropological study on food and four cookbooks on Bible recipes and about the food in Church’s history, translated in many languages. He works about the relationship between food and religion. His Twitter handle is @donciucci.

Betsy Greytok is Vice President of Ethics & Policy in the Chief Privacy Office. She works closely with the IBM AI Ethics Board developing principles, practices and policies driving the ethical development and deployment of technology. Prior to joining the CPO, Betsy was Senior Counsel for IBM and lead a legal team providing business unit support for IBM global mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IP Partnerships, and other complex alliance transactions. She was Synergy Counsel for the Red Hat acquisition, aligning key compliance measures while maintaining Red Hat’s separate identity and culture. Betsy joined IBM in 1999 after working as a trial lawyer. She has provided legal support for various IBM practices & offerings including OEM Channel Sales, Cloud & Cognitive Systems, Power Systems, and the AIX operating system.  

Kirsten Martin is the William P. and Hazel B. White Center Professor of Technology Ethics and a professor of IT, analytics, and operations in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. A nationally recognized expert in privacy, technology, and business ethics, she is the director of the Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center (ND TEC). Martin’s research has been supported by three grants from the National Science Foundation. She has written about privacy and the ethics of technology in leading academic journals across disciplines—including the Journal of Business Ethics, BEQ, the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, The Journal of Legal Studies, Washington University Law Review, and the Journal of Business Research—as well as practitioner publications such as MISQ Executive. Her book The Ethics of Data and Analytics was published by Taylor & Francis in 2022. In 2018, Martin was appointed to a five-year term on the board of directors of the Society for Business Ethics. She served as program chair for the 2021 annual meeting before assuming the group’s presidency for 2021–22. She also sits on the program committee for the Privacy Law Scholars Conference, the largest conference on privacy law in the United States. The technology and business ethics editor for the Journal of Business Ethics, Martin is an affiliate of Northeastern University’s Center for Law, Innovation and Creativity and a member of the advisory board for the Future Privacy Forum. Regularly asked to speak on privacy and the ethics of big data, she gave a TEDx talk titled “It’s Not Their Story to Tell: Why Companies Should Respect Privacy Online.” Martin earned her B.S. in engineering from the University of Michigan and her M.B.A. and Ph.D from the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business.

Panelists

Catherine Botha is full professor in Philosophy at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, Catherine joined UJ Philosophy in 2009. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Her research is focused mainly on issues in ethics and aesthetics, with a special focus on the philosophy of dance. Her interest is generated as a result of her strong background in the phenomenological tradition and its precursors in the continental tradition (most especially the work of Nietzsche and Heidegger). She also writes and teaches on themes in aesthetics and ethics in the philosophy of technology, with a strong focus on the ethics and aesthetics of artificial intelligence. Catherine is currently the co-secretary of the South African Centre for Phenomenology, and also a registered ballet teacher of the Royal Academy of Dance. She offers free tuition in classical ballet to UJ students at the UJ Art Academy. Her interest and expertise in teaching in higher education is also significant. She was the winner of the UJ Vice Chancellor’s Award for Best Young Teacher in 2014, and winner of the UJ Vice Chancellor’s Distinguished Award for Best Teacher in 2020.

Ciro de Florio is associate professor of Logic at the Faculty of Economics, at Università Cattolica of Milan. His research mainly focuses on philosophy of logic and applied logic. He is currently working on formal models for the semantics of future tense sentences, on frameworks of logics for illocutionary acts and on the structure of the abstraction principles. He is member of the scientific committee of the Humane Technology Lab of Università Cattolica and he is investigating the relationship between AI and Human Interface. Among his recent publications, Divine Omniscience and Human Free Will. A Logical and Metaphysical Analysis; A Conceptual Characterization of Autonomy in Philosophy of Robotics; Reflections on Logics  for Assertion and Denial; Future, Truth, and Probability. He likes hiking and climbing, especially with his family.

Joseph Glover has been University of Florida Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs since July 2008. Dr. Glover arrived at UF in 1983 as an assistant professor in mathematics. He chaired the Mathematics Department from 1993 to 1998 and served as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences from 1998 to 2001. Beginning in 2001, Dr. Glover served as Associate Provost for Academic Affairs for six years. Dr. Glover chaired the Task Force on the Future of the University of Florida, helped develop the university's strategic plan, and represented the university on the executive board of the New World School of the Arts. He served as Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 2007-2008.  He conceptualized and directs UF’s Artificial Intelligence Initiative. Dr. Glover received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Cornell University and his master's and doctoral degrees in mathematics from the University of California, San Diego. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Rochester before joining the University of Florida faculty. His awards include a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship held at UCSD, an NSF-CNRS fellowship held at the Universite de Grenoble II, a CLAS Teaching Award and a mentoring award from the McKnight Foundation. His research in probability theory, stochastic processes, and potential theory has been supported by the NSF, the AFOSR, and the NSA. 

Brian Green is the director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University and teaches AI ethics in Santa Clara's Graduate School of Engineering. He is a co-chair of the Responsible Use of Technology group at the World Economic Forum and has worked with some of the largest tech companies on their ethics initiatives. He is a member of the Safety-Critical AI expert group at the Partnership on AI and co-convenes several groups on AI with the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education. Green is author of the book Space Ethics, co-author of the Ethics in Technology Practice corporate technology ethics resources, co-editor of the book Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics, co-editor of a special issue of the Journal of Moral Theology on AI and moral theology, and co-author of A Handbook for Operationalizing Technology Ethics, tentative title, due out later this year. Green has been published, interviewed, or mentioned in media including The Atlantic, NPR, Nature, The Wall Street Journal, and WIRED Magazine.

Karrie Karahalios is a University Scholar and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign where she directs the Social Spaces Group. She is also the founder and Co-Director of the Center for Just Infrastructures. Her main area of research is Social Computing where she specializes in assistive technologies, social visualization, and algorithmically mediated communication. Her more recent work centers around algorithm awareness, people’s perceptions of algorithms, how they behave around them, the design of algorithmic systems, algorithm audits, the creation of contestation or appeal protocols for algorithmic systems, and algorithm literacy. Her publications have been recognized as the best in the field several times in the premiere Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Social Computing (CSCW), and database conferences. She currently chairs the CSCW starring committee, actively participates in the program committees for premier research conferences in social computing, social media mining, and human computer interaction, and is an Associate Editor for the Transactions on Social Computing Journal. She has been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Harvard Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society Fellowship, a Kavli Fellowship, the A. Richard Newton Breakthrough Research Award, an NSF Early Career Award, and an NCSA Fellowship, among others. Her work has received extensive coverage in the press, including in Time, New Scientist, Fortune, Wired, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Fast Company, and Variety. The Executive Office of the President cited her work in a White House Report on Big Data: A Report on Algorithmic Systems, Opportunity, and Civil Rights, that named five national priorities "essential" for the development of big data technologies. This report cited “algorithm audits” introduced in her work with colleagues as one of those priorities.

Archan Misra is Vice Provost (Research) and Professor of Computer Science at Singapore Management University (SMU). Before joining SMU, Archan spent over a decade as a researcher at multiple industry labs in the United States, including the IBM TJ Watson Research Center and Bellcore/Telcordia Applied Research. At SMU, Archan is responsible for defining the university’s research strategy (including identifying future directions for thematic research and establishing relevant institutional partnerships) and overseeing all aspects of research administration and policy. Archan  has served as a PI/Director of a number of multi-million-dollar, flagship research initiatives at SMU,including the LiveLabs, CASA and LARC research centers that have collectively focused on exploiting pervasive sensing and mobility analytics for novel smart-city applications. His current research interests, funded by the prestigious Investigatorship grant (from Singapore’s National Research Foundation), lie in ultra-low energy execution of AI algorithms on wearable and IoT devices. Archan has over 180 publications in prestigious, refereed academic journals and conferences and is the inventor on 30+ issued patents. Archan holds a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland at College Park, and is an ACM Distinguished Member.

Daniele Nardi is full Professor (since 2000) at Sapienza Univ. Roma, Faculty of Information Engineering, Informatics, and Statistics, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering "A. Ruberti", teacher of AI in the Master in AI and Robotics. He is the Director of  the Laboratory on Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems of National Consortium for Informatics (CINI). He is the leader of the DIAG research lab "Cognitive Robot Teams", researching on: Cognitive Robotics, Localization, Navigation, Perception, Multi-robot Cooperation, Human Robot Interaction; and in several application domains: Robots for elderly, Disaster Response robots, Cultural Heritage, Precision Agriculture, RoboCup Soccer Player robots. His research has been supported by several national and international grants. Daniele Nardi has a rich publication record in AI and Robotics (H-index > 50). He is EurAI Fellow, and former President of RoboCup Federation (2011-2014).

Paola Pisano is the adviser for digital economy and technological innovation at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and an Associate Professor of Economics and Business Management at the University of Turin. She is the former Minister of Technological Innovation and Digitalization of Italy and the former Councilor for Innovation and Smart City of the City of Turin.

Yujin Yaguchi is Vice President (Global Education) and Professor of Cultural Studies at Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies of the University of Tokyo. He received his B.A. from Goshen College and his master’s and doctoral degrees in American Studies from the College of William and Mary. He was also a Fulbright visiting scholar to U.C. Santa Cruz and the East-West Center (Honolulu). He has published and presented widely in Japanese and English on the intercultural dynamics of Japan-Pacific-US relations, especially focusing on Hawai‘i. His most recent publication in English appears in Unpredictable Agents: The Making of Japan’s Americanists during the Cold War and Beyond (U of Hawai‘i Press, 2021). He is an active member of “B’AI Global Forum” of the Institute for Ai and Beyond of the University of Tokyo. His current research includes the cultural significance of technology in museum exhibits, including the use of AI in historical testimonies and representations.

Participating Universities

• Baze University
• Catholic University of Croatia
• Chuo University
• Columbia University
• Comillas Pontifical University
• Dr. Viswanath Karad MIT World Peace University
• Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
• Indian Institute of Science
• Institut Supérieur d'Informatique-Université de Tunis El Manar
• IPADE Business School
• Keio University
• Marquette University
• Mohammed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence
• Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• San Jose State University
• Santa Clara University
• Sapienza University of Rome
• Schiller International University
• Singapore Management University
• St. John's University
• Strathmore University
• SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities
• Tecnológico de Monterrey
• Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
• University at Buffalo, SUNY
• University of Colorado Boulder
• University of Florida
• University of Illinois
• University of Johannesburg
• University of Mauritius
• University of Navarra
• University of Notre Dame
• University of Oxford
• University of Tokyo
• University of Turin

Indicates that the university is also signing the Rome Call for AI Ethics during the Summit

What is the Rome Call for AI Ethics?

The Rome Call for AI Ethics is a commitment around ethics, rights, and education, aiming to promote an ethical approach to the design, development, and deployment of AI. It seeks to advance a sense of shared responsibility among international organizations, governments, institutions, and the private sector to create a future in which digital innovation and technological progress are centered around humanity. The Rome Call invites actors from all parts of our global society—public and private, for-profit and nonprofit, and a wide range of cultural, ethical, and religious traditions—to recognize that the development of ethical AI is an issue of pressing concern that impacts people everywhere, and to mobilize in support of solutions we can all share.

The Rome Call was published in February 2020 and originally signed in Rome by the Pontifical Academy for Life, Microsoft, IBM, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Italian Ministry of Innovation. In 2021 it was signed by the University La Sapienza (Rome), and in 2022 it will be signed by representatives of the three main Abrahamic religions. These are companies and institutions that endorse its principles and share the same approach to identify and address AI ethics issues.

To learn more about the Rome Call for AI Ethics and read the whole signed document, visit romecall.org.

Why should a university sign the Rome Call for AI Ethics and attend the summit?

Through both their support of pathbreaking research and their responsibility to educate the next generation of technological innovators, universities have an essential role to play in operationalizing the Rome Call for AI Ethics’ principles into practice and in bringing awareness about AI ethics and human-centric technology in the new generations.

By signing the Rome Call, a university will join a network of higher education institutions that share best practices, tools, and educational content around the principles of the call. The network will meet regularly to share updates, discuss innovative ideas, and democratize AI ethics solutions in an inclusive way.

Participation in the summit will allow all signing universities to discuss and define a collaborative operationalization strategy of the Rome Call for AI Ethics, as well as to engage with academics and policy leaders in discussing pressing AI ethics concerns and possible solutions in education, research, and policy.

Interview with Fr. Paolo Benanti

Father Paolo Benanti, Extraordinary Professor of Moral Theology, Bioethics, Neuroethics, and Ethics of Technologies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, is a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and recently appeared on the Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab podcast Tech on Earth to talk about, among other things, the Rome Call for AI Ethics.

Travel and Accommodations

The University of Notre Dame is adjacent to the city of South Bend, Indiana. Below are several links to help you plan your trip. Please note that Notre Dame is in the same time zone as New York City (Eastern), which is one hour ahead of the two Chicago airports listed here.

South Bend International Airport

Chicago O’Hare International Airport (approx. two hours from Notre Dame)

Chicago Midway International Airport (approx. two hours from Notre Dame)

The following hotels are within walking distance of McKenna Hall, the venue for the summit: 

The Morris Inn

Embassy Suites by Hilton South Bend at Notre Dame

Fairfield Inn and Suites South Bend at Notre Dame

Additional Places to Stay