Ph.D. Certificate: Ethics and Artificial Intelligence

A joint certificate between the School of Computer Science and Dietrich College

Artificial intelligence and AI-based technologies are rapidly becoming a powerful force in today’s science and society.

As these technologies continue to shape our world, there is a growing need to ensure they are designed, developed, deployed, and used in an ethical and responsible manner. AI technologies raise complex and novel ethical and societal challenges that require both deep technical expertise and ethical knowledge to address. Numerous examples have demonstrated the consequences of failing to meet ethical standards, ranging from the lack of transparency to privacy violations. To develop responsible AI systems, scientists and engineers must understand the ethical implications of their work, while social scientists and humanities researchers must grasp the capabilities and limitations of AI and machine learning to provide meaningful guidance. Many technology companies have established dedicated teams to guide the ethical development and deployment of AI. This trend shows the urgent need to educate technologists, social scientists, and humanities researchers who can lead these efforts in industry and beyond.

Experience has shown that effective collaboration between technologists and ethicists requires a shared understanding of each other’s concepts and vocabularies. To meet this need, this certificate program offers cross-disciplinary training, enabling participants from various fields to engage meaningfully with one another and work together on challenges at the intersection of AI, ethics, and society. We believe this convergence of technical and ethical skills is essential for the future.

Students who complete this certification will be well-positioned at the forefront of a critical and emerging interdisciplinary field.

The certificate program will consist of four courses:

1. One graduate-level course in Ethics (either the portal or another grad-level course)
2. One graduate-level course in AI/ML (either the portal or another grad-level course)
3. An "integrative" course that examines fundamental issues in Al/technology and Ethics from both a technical and philosophical viewpoint
4. A project-oriented course that will involve synthesizing the concepts learned and applying them to a problem from an external client from industry, government, or not-for-profit.

For the first two requirements above, we will offer courses that are accessible to students who are not majoring in the field (which we refer to as "portal" courses). Alternately, students can substitute an advanced graduate-level course for the portal course. The curriculum spreadsheet indicates pre-approved substitute courses, although other courses may be accepted by petitioning the program director. We will allow one course to double-count with the student's Ph.D. requirements, so that a student in either Ethics or AI can complete the certificate with only 3 additional courses, while the program still remains accessible to students from other disciplines.

Concretely, students completing the certification program will acquire the following skills:

• Recognize and be fluent with the basic concepts in both AI/ML and Ethics
• Demonstrate mastery in either AI/ML or Ethics
• Identify ethical issues involved in AI applications
• Design feasible solutions, both technical and non-technical, to ethical issues involved in Al applications
• Communicate ethical and technical concerns to ethicists, technologists, and the public

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