Wendell Wallach has been at the forefront of contemporary emerging technology issues for decades now. As an interdisciplinary thinker, he has engaged at the intersections of ethics, governance, AI, bioethics, robotics, and philosophy since the beginning formulations of what we now know as AI alignment were being codified. Wendell began with a broad interest in the ethics of emerging technology and has since become focused on machine ethics and AI governance. This conversation with Wendell explores his intellectual journey and participation in these fields.

 Topics discussed in this episode include:

-Wendell’s intellectual journey in machine ethics and AI governance 

-The history of machine ethics and alignment considerations

-How machine ethics and AI alignment serve to produce beneficial AI 

-Soft law and hard law for shaping AI governance 

-Wendell’s and broader efforts for the global governance of AI

-Social and political mechanisms for mitigating the risks of AI 

-Wendell’s forthcoming book

You can find the page and transcript here: https://futureoflife.org/2019/11/15/machine-ethics-and-ai-governance-with-wendell-wallach/

Important timestamps: 

0:00 intro

2:50 Wendell's evolution in work and thought

10:45 AI alignment and machine ethics

27:05 Wendell's focus on AI governance

34:04 How much can soft law shape hard law?

37:27 What does hard law consist of?

43:25 Contextualizing the International Congress for the Governance of AI

45:00 How AI governance efforts might fail

58:40 AGI governance

1:05:00 Wendell's forthcoming book