Shannon Vallor - Home

I hold the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh's Edinburgh Futures Institute, where I direct the Centre for Technomoral Futures. I am also appointed as Professor in Philosophy.

My research explores the philosophy and ethics of emerging science and technologies. My current research project focuses on the impact of emerging technologies--particularly those involving automation and artificial intelligence--on the moral and intellectual habits, skills and virtues of human beings: our character.

My work investigates how human character is being transformed by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, new social media, surveillance, and biomedical technologies, and appears in journals such as Ethics and Information Technology, Philosophy & Technology, and Techne, as well as a 2016 book from Oxford University Press: Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting. I am the editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology and am currently working on a new book on the subject of artificial intelligence and ethics: The AI Mirror: Rebuilding Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking.

I have a special interest in the integration of ethics with industry and engineering/computer science education, and I engage in outreach on this subject with a range of stakeholders inside and outside academia, including government, industry, law, media and public policy professionals and advocates. I presently chair Scotland's Data Delivery Group and serve on several boards in the domain of data ethics and responsible AI and robotics development. Professional honors include the 2015 World Technology Award in Ethics.

Technology and the Virtues (Oxford University Press)

Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting

Available from Oxford University Press and other booksellers
2016. $39.95, 309 pp. Hardcover, Paperback, and e-book

Applies classical Aristotelian, Confucian and Buddhist philosophical accounts of virtue to the new challenges of living well in globally networked societies. The book argues for the unique value of virtue ethics as a moral framework for the 21st century human condition, in which the future of an increasingly interdependent and networked human family is clouded by uncertainty, instability, complexity and risk. It offers an account of the technomoral virtues vital to our flourishing in this new environment, and how they can help us meet urgent ethical challenges from today's emerging technologies: military and social robotics, new social media, digital surveillance and self-tracking, and biomedical enhancement.