Ethical missteps in the research, design, development, and deployment of AI and big data systems are not confined to ignorant or bad actors. Even well-meaning actors who deploy significant resources toward ensuring that they act responsibly frequently err. This talk discusses four recurring types of ethical mistakes in research, design, development, and deployment of AI and uses these mistakes to motivate the development of an ethics ecosystem, a system of coordinated components that distributes the tasks and responsibilities that lead to ethical practice. After motivating the need for such an ecosystem, the talk will take up the question of how to build an ecosystem and what to do in the interim. 

John Basl is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University and an Associate Director of Northeastern's Ethics Institute where he leads AI & Data Ethics Initiatives. John's research is in moral philosophy and applied ethics with a focus on the ethics of emerging technologies.