Mala and Solomon Kamm Lecture in Ethics, Harvard University (Video)

Mala and Solomon Kamm Lecture in Ethics, Harvard University

Seth Lazar gave the second annual Mala and Solomon Kamm lecture in Ethics, at the Safra Center for Ethics, at Harvard University, on April 7, 2022. This prestigious lecture series was endowed by the brilliant philosopher Frances Kamm, professor at Rutgers University, in honour of her parents. It is a particular honour for Seth to give this lecture, due to the great debt his own work holds to Kamm's pathbreaking research in deontological ethics. 

The lecture was titled 'The Nature and Justification of Algorithmic Power', here's the abstract: 

Algorithmic intermediaries increasingly mediate and govern our social relations, across commerce, politics, and sociality more broadly. In doing so, they exercise a distinct kind of intermediary power: they exercise power over us; they shape power relations between us; and they shape the social structures that those social relations constitute. Sometimes, when new or intensified forms of power emerge, our task is simply to eliminate them—to re-establish our independence from domination. But algorithmic intermediaries can enable new kinds of human flourishing, and could support transformative change to ossified social structures that are otherwise resistant to progress. Our task, then, is to understand and diagnose algorithmic power, and determine whether and how it can be justified. This paper uses political philosophy to advance that project—and uses algorithmic intermediary power to advance political philosophy. It offers an empirically-grounded theory of algorithmic power, then sets out the conditions for its justification, paying particular attention to the conditions under which private algorithmic power either can, or must not, be tolerated.

In addition to the lecture, Seth met with undergraduate and graduate students with interests in AI.