Abstract

A code is a tool for hiding things of value. Yet codes also grant access to what has been hidden and locked away. This lecture explores the role of code, and coding, in both hiding and granting access to our humanity, in multiple senses of the word. As a philosophical provocation, it offers a challenge to the core values and aims of modern computing, those most deeply embedded in today’s rush toward algorithmic automation, and asks how those aims might be remade in the service of humane futures.

Prof. Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) at the University of Edinburgh, where she is also appointed in Philosophy. She directs the Centre for Technomoral Futures in EFI , and is co-Director of the UKRI ’s BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) programme. Professor Vallor’s research explores how AI, robotics, and data science reshape human character, habits, and practices. Her work includes advising policymakers and industry on the ethical design and use of AI, and she is a former Visiting Researcher and AI Ethicist at Google. She currently serves on the standing committee of Stanford University’s One Hundred Year Study of AI (AI100). Her works include two monographs: Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (Oxford University Press, 2016) and The AI Mirror: Reclaiming Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford University Press, 2024).