Vacek discussing AI at the Pohoda festival
The Representation of the European Commission in Slovakia organised a discussion Café Európa: AI – Our End or a New Beginning? at the Pohoda festival. Filip Struhárik lead the discussion, featuring guests Zuzana Juráneková (a psychologist), Michal Meško (CEO Martinus) and the project's PI, Daniela Vacek. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD2ZFisdwco
Twenty-fifth seminar: Vacek on responsible artificial intelligence, once more (10 July 2025, hybrid)
Twenty-fifth seminar of the project took place on 10 July 2025. We have discussed Vacek's manuscript on responsible artificial intelligence.
Twenty-fourth seminar: Veluwenkamp on responsibility gaps (16 June 2025, hybrid)
Twenty-fourth seminar of the project took place on 16 June 2025. We have discussed the paper Veluwenkamp, H. (2025). What responsibility gaps are and what they should be. Ethics and Information Technology, 27(1), 1-13. Veluwenkamp criticizes existing accounts of responsibility gaps and suggests a revision of the concept.
Vacek on bridging proxy gaps (22 - 23 May 2025, Bucharest)
Vacek delivered a keynote lecture at the workshop Artificial agency and responsibility: the rise of LLM-powered avatars that took place on 22 - 23 May 2025 in Bucharest. The workshop was organised by an ERC project Avatar Responsibility lead by Mihaela Constantinescu. See https://avataresponsibility.ccea.ro/2025-edition/
Twenty-third seminar: Sweeney on avatars (19 May 2025, hybrid)
Twenty-third seminar of the project took place on 19 May 2025. We have discussed the paper Sweeney, P. (2023). Avatars as proxies. Minds and Machines, 33(3), 525-539. Sweeney suggests to understand avatars as proxies, employing Floridi's account.
Twenty-second seminar: Constantinescu on AI avatars and the proxy gap (3 April 2025, hybrid)
Twenty-second seminar of the project took place on 3 April 2025. We have discussed Constantinescu's manuscript Do generative AI avatars open new responsibility gaps? Constantinescu argues in the affirmative, building on Sweeney's suggestion.
Twenty-first seminar: Demirtas on responsibility gaps (27 March 2025, hybrid)
Twenty-first seminar of the project took place on 27 March 2025. We have discussed the paper Demirtas, H. (2025). AI responsibility gap: not new, inevitable, unproblematic. Ethics and Information Technology, 27(1), 7. The paper argued for a less common position in the AI responsibility gaps debate: while responsibility gaps are not a novel phenomena, they are ubiquitous and inevitable. However, according to Demirtas, they are not problematic.
Twentieth seminar: Vacek on responsible artificial intelligence (27 February 2025, hybrid)
Twentieth seminar of the project took place on 27 February 2025. We have discussed a work in progress paper on role responsibility applied in the context of AI by Daniela Vacek.
Eighteenth seminar: Gavorník and Podroužek on moral sensitivity (30 January 2025, hybrid)
Eighteenth seminar of the project took place on 30 January 2025. We have discussed a work in progress paper on moral sensitivity framework by Adrián Gavorník and Juraj Podroužek.
Seventeenth seminar: Da Silva on filling responsibility gaps (16 December 2024, hybrid)
Seventeenth seminar of the project took place on 16 December 2024. We have discussed the paper Da Silva, M. (2024). When to Fill Responsibility Gaps: A Proposal. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 1-26.
Gyurász on legal issues of new technologies (11 December 2024)
Zoltán Gyurász delivered a talk at the event Legal problems of AI in the context of startups.
Sixteenth seminar: Da Silva on responsibility gaps (28 November 2024, hybrid)
Sixteenth seminar of the project took place on 28 November 2024. We have discussed the paper Da Silva, M. (2024). Responsibility Gaps. Philosophy Compass, 19(9-10).
TECHNE researchers at the UNESCO conference on ethics of AI and neurotechnologies
Juraj Podroužek delivered the talk On ethical aspects of AI anthropomorphisation and Daniela Vacek delivered the talk Responsible artificial intelligence.
Fifteenth seminar: Vacek on AI achievements (28 October 2024, hybrid)
Fifteenth seminar of the project took place on 28 October. We have discussed a manuscript on AI achievements by Daniela Vacek, a response paper on Kieval's paper we discussed previously. The paper is now forthcoming in Analysis:
https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anaf034
TECHNE researchers at the conference of the Slovak Philosophical Association: Technologies: Rise or Fall? (9 - 11 October 2024, Smolenice)
Juraj Podroužek delivered the talk The Role of Moral Sensitivity in Developing Trustworthy AI and Daniela Vacek delivered a talk Against Artificial Achievements.
Podroužek on fostering ethical sensitivity (2 - 4 October 2024, Netherlands)
Juraj Podroužek and Adrián Gavorník
presented an ongoing research on moral sensitivity in the context of
ethics-based assessments, shared their experiences of conducting workshops
with AI practitioners, and proposed further research towards empirical AI
ethics. See
Fourteenth seminar: Kieval on AI achievements (19 September 2024, hybrid)
Fourteenth seminar of the project took place on 19 September 2024. We have discussed the paper Kieval, P. H. (2024). Artificial achievements. Analysis, 84(1), 32-41. Kieval suggests that certain achievements, such as the defeat of Lee Sedol by an AI system AlphaGo, are achievements of artificial intelligence, in this case AlphaGo's.
Workshop Sumer challenge KInIT - AI regulatory frameworks (13 September 2024)
The workshop on AI ethics and regulatory
frameworks took place on 13 September. We have presented five frameworks: The
Fundamental Rights and Algorithm Impact Assessment; Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law Impact
Assessment of AI systems; Intesa: Fundamental Rights and Artificial
Intelligence Impact Assessment; ISO 42005 (Juraj Podroužek) and AI4People Ethics-by-design with the focus on the
identification of accountability roles and various methodology details
concerning the construction of such frameworks.
Kosterec on transparent logics (19 September, Ostrava)
Miloš Kosterec participated at the event Logic Café with the talk The central
incoherence in TIL. He presented his book Transparent Logics, which is affiliated to the project.
Vacek on ethical problems of AI (12 September 2024, in person)
Daniela Vacek was invited to deliver a lecture for NIVAM, entitled "Vybrané etické problémy umelej inteligencie" at an event "Odborný seminár o umelej inteligencii" (in Slovak), 12. 9. 2024 in Bratislava: https://nivam.sk/zaznelo-na-odbornom-seminari-internet-je-kontaminovany-knihy-pise-aj-umela-inteligencia-no-dokaze-bojovat-aj-proti-nenavisti-klucova-sa-ukazuje-zodpovednost/
Thirteenth seminar: Chesterman on legal responsibility in the context of AI (26 August 2024, hybrid)
Thirteenth seminar of the project took place on 26 August 2024. We have discussed the chapter on Responsibility from Simon Chesterman's book Chesterman, S. (2021). We, the robots?. Cambridge University Press.
Sambrotta on LLMs and role following, continued (11 - 17 August 2024, Austria)
Mirco Sambrotta participated at the 45th International
Wittgenstein Symposium with a talk On the Nexus of Rule-Following,
Learning, and Accountability in LLMs.
Twelfth seminar: Santoni de Sio and Van den Hoven on meaningful human control (11 July 2024, online)
The twelfth seminar of the project took place on 11 July 2024. We have discussed the paper Santoni de Sio, F., & Van den Hoven, J. (2018). Meaningful human control over autonomous systems: A philosophical account. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 5, 15. This paper provides the first comprehensive philosophical analysis of the concept of meaningful human control, which has been introduced in the legal-political debate. The paper also provides some motivation for employing the proposed account.
Zelinová on sex robots (23 June 2024, Bratislava)
Zuzana Zelinová delivered a public lecture on sex robots from the perspective of contemporary feminism.
Persons of Responsibility conference
TECHNE workshop at the Persons of Responsibility conference
Alžbeta Kuchtová's workshop on Fear of AI and its Use in Contemporary Democracies
Vacek on robot control and responsibility (23 - 24 May 2024, Cork)
Daniela Vacek was invited to present her work at a two-day international workshop "Institutions, Agency, and Responsibility" at the University of Cork in Ireland. She presented her paper (in collaboration with Matteo Pascucci) on responsible robot control.
The eleventh seminar: Constantinescu et al on responsible AI via virtue ethics (20 May 2024, hybrid)
The eleventh seminar of the project took place on 20 May 2024. We have discussed the paper Constantinescu, M., Voinea, C., Uszkai, R., & Vică, C. (2021). Understanding responsibility in Responsible AI. Dianoetic virtues and the hard problem of context. Ethics and Information Technology, 23, 803-814. The authors argue for Aristotelian virtue ethics in the context of responsible AI.
Gyurász on ethical and legal issues of new technologies (10 May 2025)
Zoltán Gyurász delivered a lecture on ethical and legal issues of new technologies at the ATUM navigátor event.
The tenth seminar: Bryson on AI as moral agents or patients (29 April 2024, hybrid)
The tenth seminar of the project took place on 29 April 2024. We have discussed the paper Bryson, J. J. (2018). Patiency is not a virtue: the design of intelligent systems and systems of ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 20(1), 15-26. Joanna Bryson argues that while it is possible to construe AI systems as either moral agents or patients, neither of these is desirable.
Vacek on AI responsibility (10 April 2024, in person)
Daniela Vacek was invited to deliver a lecture on "Responsible control over artificial intelligence" at an event "Rozhovory o zodpovednej AI: regulácia, prax, etika" (in Slovak). The event took place at the Academy of the Police Force in Bratislava in collaboration with STU, The Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic, and Microsoft on April 10 2024.
The Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, v.v.i. and the Slovak Philosophical Association are hosting the conference "Persons of Responsibility" on June 6-7, 2024. The event is mainly dedicated to the following topics:
- Analysis of Responsibility;
- Ethics of Artificial Intelligence;
- Formal and Informal Methods for Normative Reasoning.
The conference program will include the following keynote speakers:
Mihaela Constantinescu (University of Bucharest, Romania)
Jozef Jančovič (Comenius University, Slovakia)
Filippo Santoni de Sio (TU Delft, The Netherlands)
Sven Nyholm (LMU Munich, Germany)
We invite anyone interested in the mentioned topics to submit an abstract (up to 500 words) for presentation. The deadline for submission is May 15, 2024. You can send your abstract to any of the organizers:
Daniela Vacek (daniela.vacek@savba.sk)
Matteo Pascucci (matteo.pascucci@savba.sk)
Authors will receive a notification by May 22. The conference will also feature a workshop on "Fear of AI and Its Use in Contemporary Democracies" (confirmed speakers: Irakli Chedia, Mark Coeckelbergh, Alžbeta Kuchtová, Jose Louis Guerrero Quiñones, Adam Škrovan).
The ninth seminar: a lecture on the Foundations of AI by Patrik Goldschmidt (21 March 2024, at KInIT)
The ninth seminar of the project took place on 21 March 2024. The seminar took place at the Kempelen Institute of Intelligent Technologies. Patrik Goldschmidt presented an extensive survey of the basics of AI from the technological point of view, along with the past, present, and future of AI.
The eighth seminar: Köhler, Roughley and Sauer on technologically blurred accountability and AI responsibility gaps (29 February 2024, online)
The eighth seminar of the project took place on 29 February 2024. We have discussed the paper Köhler, S., Roughley, N., & Sauer, H. (2017). Technologically blurred accountability?: Technology, responsibility gaps and the robustness of our everyday conceptual scheme. In Moral agency and the politics of responsibility (pp. 51-68). Routledge. The authors argue that there are no AI accountability gaps. The paper by Tigard we discussed previously was building and expanding on the ideas of the present paper.
Sambrotta on LLMs and rule-following (22 February, Prague)
Sambrotta delivered an invited lecture "If God Looked into AIs,
Would He Be Able to See Whom They Are Speaking Of?" at AV ČR in Prague.
The seventh seminar:
Tigard on responsibility gaps (18 January 2024, hybrid)
The seventh
seminar of the project took place on 18 January 2024. We have discussed the
paper Tigard, D. W. (2021). There is no techno-responsibility gap. Philosophy
& Technology, 34(3), 589-607. The paper is a contribution to the AI
responsibility gaps debate. Contrary to both techno-optimists (who maintain
that there is a technology-related gap in responsibility that can be bridged)
and techno-pessimists (who maintain that there is a technology-related gap in
responsibility that cannot be bridged), Tigard argues that there is no such gap
in responsibility.
A work
in progress discussion: Kosterec on moral responsibility in a vat (11
January 2024, hybrid)
On 11
January 2024 we discussed Miloš Kosterec's work in progress project paper Moral
responsibility in a vat. The paper responds to the paper Khoury, A. C.
(2018). The objects of moral responsibility. Philosophical Studies, 175,
1357-1381. These papers are concerned with a thought experiment of moral agents
in a vat, which provides an interesting future research direction within
the project due to the similarities between potential moral agents in
a vat and intelligent technologies as potential moral agents.
The sixth
seminar: Pascucci and Vacek on responsible robot control (14 December 2023, in
person)
The sixth
seminar of the project took place on 14 December 2023. We have discussed
a submitted project paper of two members of the research team, M. Pascucci
and D. Vacek, entitled "Responsible robot control". The paper builds
on an earlier project paper by D. Vacek, Two remarks on the new AI control
problem. AI and Ethics, 1-6. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43681-023-00339-9. The discussed paper tackles the
issue of appropriate and inappropriate control over robots and artificial
intelligence.
The fifth seminar: Sparrow on the ethics of sex robots (20 November 2023, online)
The fifth seminar of the project took place on 20 November 2023. We have discussed the paper Sparrow, R. (2017). Robots, rape, and representation. International Journal of Social Robotics, 9(4), 465-477. The author focuses on the ethics of the "rape" of robots. Sparrows considers both sex robots that can explicitly refuse consent and sex robots that lack capacity to refuse consent as morally problematic.
The fourth seminar: Green and Michel on machines and speech acts (30 October 2023, in person)
The fourth seminar of the project took place on 30 October 2023. We have discussed the paper Green, M., & Michel, J. G. (2022). What might machines mean?. Minds and Machines, 32(2), 323-338. The question whether machines can perform speech acts is relevant to "the possibility of weaving them into our moral fabric". To answer this difficult question, the authors propose to construe artificial speakers as proxies in the performance of speech acts.
A talk at the Philosophy as Crossing Borders conference: Oreško on the anthropomorphization of artificial intelligence (Košice, Slovakia)
Štefan Oreško participated in the
international scientific conference "Philosophy as Crossing Borders"
in Košice. He gave a talk on the anthropomorphization of artificial
intelligence and its implications for moral responsibility. The talk aimed to explore the relationship between anthropomorphization of AI systems, the attribution of moral agency to them,
and the question of their moral responsibility. See: https://www.sfz.sk/node/61 and https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kempelen-institute-of-intelligent-technologies_our-researcher-stefan-oresko-participated-activity-7128283097346756608-CiFA?
An interview with Mesarčík about AI regulation (31 October 2023, media appearance, in Slovak)
Podroužek about the
risks associated with artificial intelligence: AI is a good servant but a bad
master (30 October 2023, media appearance, in Slovak)
Podroužek on AI ethics in a radio show (18 October 2023, in Slovak)
See: https://devin.rtvs.sk/clanky/temy/341244/symposion-etika-umelej-inteligencie
Sumer
challenge KInIT - AI regulatory frameworks (12 October 2023)
The workshop on AI ethics and regulatory
frameworks took place on 12 October. We have presented five frameworks (Ethics
by design, Z-Inspection, AI Verify, Human rights impact assessment guidance and
toolbox, Practical fundamental rights impact assessments) with
the focus on the identification of accountability roles and various methodology
details concerning the construction of such frameworks.
The third seminar: Nyholm on the new AI control problem (28 September 2023, online)
The third seminar took place on 28 September 2023. We have discussed the paper Nyholm, S. (2023). Artificial Intelligence, Humanoid Robots, and Old and New Control Problems. In Social Robots in Social Institutions (pp. 3-12). IOS Press. In this paper, Nyhom focuses on the old and new AI control problems (the new AI control problem was introduced in Nyholm, S. (2022). A new control problem? Humanoid robots, artificial intelligence, and the value of control. AI and Ethics, 1-11). This topic relates to the results of the project published in the article Vacek, D. (2023). Two remarks on the new AI control problem. AI and Ethics, 1-6.
A talk at the Formalising Responsibility conference: Vacek on AI control and responsibility (Manchester, United Kingdom)
A three-day conference Formalising Responsibility organised by the UKRI-funded 'The Computational Agent Responsibility' project, which is a collaboration between the University of Leeds and the
University of Manchester focusing on interdisciplinary work in
philosophy and computer science on the topic of responsibility of
autonomous systems, took place on 20 - 22 September 2023 in Manchester. The principal investigator of the project, Daniela Vacek presented there on the new AI control problem and vicarious responsibility. For more information, see https://joecol.github.io/FormRes/
A talk at the XXVII. Czecho-Slovak Symposium on Analytic Philosophy (Bratislava, Slovakia)
XXVII. Czecho-Slovak Symposium on Analytic Philosophy organised by the Department of Logic and the Methodology of Sciences at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava took place on 11 - 13 September 2023. The principal investigator of the project, Daniela Vacek presented there on the new AI control problem.
The second seminar: Hakli and Mäkelä on moral responsibility of robots (17 August 2023, in person)
The second seminar of the project took place on 17 August 2023.
We discussed the paper Hakli, R., & Mäkelä, P. (2019). Moral responsibility of robots and hybrid agents. The Monist, 102(2), 259-275. This paper formulates a conceptual argument against the possibility of moral responsibility of robots.
The kick-off meeting: Sullins on moral responsibility of robots (20 July 2023, online)
The kick-off seminar of the project took place on 20 July 2023. We discussed the paper Sullins, J. P. (2011). When is a robot a moral agent. Machine ethics, 6(2001), 151-161. Sullins presents an optimistic picture which would, in principle, allow for moral responsibility of robots.
