Ethische Herausforderungen im Digitalen Zeitalter

Winter

(engl. Ethical Challenges in the Digital Age )

Angestrebte Lernergebnisse:
At the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Correctly classify digitalisation as part of human civilisation.
• They will be familiar with ‘ethics’ as a branch of practical philosophy and how it differs from ‘morality’.
• They are familiar with the various possible justifications and derivations for moral behaviour and can demonstrate them.
• Students are familiar with different disciplines of ethics and can discuss these with different justifications and in different disciplines using examples from the field of digitalisation
• Students can derive the valid norms from the ‘Christian West’ and the ‘world view of antiquity’ and apply them to current issues in the digital age.
• Students are familiar with different ethical fields and the difference between economic and moral maxims of action.
• Students have learnt about different ethical guidelines from companies and the German Informatics Society.
• Students have an overview of different economic sectors and their digital development, including the use of artificial intelligence.
• Students independently recognise the particular ethical challenges posed by the rapid development of digitalisation in general and with regard to artificial intelligence in particular.
• They recognise the opportunities and areas of application of digital solutions, but also the various limits and restrictions that arise.
• You will be able to name, correctly classify and evaluate new professional groups in the field of digitalisation and AI.
• Students will be able to demonstrate and explain the transformation of companies through digitalisation using the automotive industry as an example. Students will be able to identify the various ethical challenges arising from the transformation.
• Students are aware of the problems involved in trying to define artificial intelligence precisely.
• They can name the differences between so-called weak AI and strong AI (Artificial General Intelligence) and understand the difference between AI in feature films and the reality in professional and private practice.
• Students can demonstrate the dynamics of digitalisation in the areas of software, hardware and examples of AI solutions.
• Students are familiar with the similarities and differences between artificial neural networks and the human brain and can explain the strengths and weaknesses of AI solutions based on artificial neural networks.
• Students are familiar with the use of AI in professional and private applications using the example of AI assistants, AI agents and AI-based autonomous systems and can categorise them confidently.
• Students are familiar with ethical problem areas in the field of AI-generated or AI-manipulated images and their rapid dissemination in digital media.
• Based on the World Economic Forum in Davos (2024), students have identified and can evaluate global problems arising from digitalisation and AI.
• Students will be able to narrow down and categorise ethical challenges in the use of artificial intelligence.
• In the lecture, students have dealt intensively with unintended challenges inherent in AI (unseens) and user-specific dependencies.
• Students are familiar with the legal challenges involved in the use of AI and can differentiate between them. Students are familiar with the EU's risk-based approach to the use of AI and can confidently assign solutions to the various risk categories.
• Students have learnt about the use of AI in totalitarian systems and the dangers for a free civil society and can independently name the challenges.
• Students can confidently name the further development of digital solutions and AI-controlled systems in the field of military economy and warfare.
• Students have learnt about different solutions

Inhalt:

• Definition of ethics
• Descriptive ethics
• Justification of ethics
• Teleological ethics
• Deontological ethics
• Opportunities of digitalisation
• Barriers to the commercial usability of data
• Ethical challenge in dealing with personal data / metadata
• Expansion of the concept of reality
• Artificial intelligence and technological singularity
• Areas of application of digitalisation
• Distribution
• Mobility (autonomous driving; smart cars)
• Autonomous decisions by machines
• Intelligent, networked production,
• Industry 4.0
• Autonomous warfare

Arbeitsaufwand:
90h attendance + 60h independent work

Hinweise: