Course summary

An interdisciplinary degree with Edinburgh Futures Institute This programme meets the urgent demand for interdisciplinary skills and knowledge in the ethical design, use and governance of artificial intelligence and other data-intensive technologies. Today, many organisations and sectors that work with artificial intelligence (AI) and data-intensive applications are missing the distinctive expertise in their technical and policy/governance workforce needed to answer society’s ethical demands for responsible technology use, which increasingly goes beyond mere legal compliance. Faced with rising public expectations and regulatory demands that new technologies will be applied not just legally, but ethically, all sectors require skilled graduates armed with critical, creative and higher-order data skills. Graduates of this programme will help their future employers to navigate complex new technical systems and roles with transparency, accountability, fairness, justice, and respect for individual and human rights, and in ways aligned with genuine human and social needs. Our interdisciplinary degree is designed with the University of Edinburgh’s world-leading academic expertise in this area, drawing on philosophy, law, informatics, and science and technology innovation studies (STIS). It leverages the research power and mission of the Futures Institute’s Centre for Technomoral Futures, which promotes sustainable, just and ethical outcomes for artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven technology. You will:

• build the complex cognitive and collaborative skills needed to become knowledgeable and competent in responsible and ethical data and AI development, use and governance

• develop an understanding of the ethical, legal, policy and design values, principles and practices that enable responsible use of data and AI

• gain practical experience working and communicating about AI and data ethics with other stakeholders and practitioners across sectors, disciplines and publics

• how ethical norms and principles map onto the distinctive technical affordances of AI and data science

• how ethics intersects with other forms of technology governance such as law, policy, design and professional standards

• how ethics relates to broader political and cultural contestations of algorithmic, corporate and state power and influence

• core data skills

• data ethics

• the ability to interrogate issues of global scope using perspectives from across disciplines

• creative and analytic approaches to knowledge