Ethics for Nerds

Hello everyone,

Exam results are out now. Thanks to the amazing team of tutors, we finished grading much earlier than anticipated. Thank you! :)
You can see your grade on your personal status page. If you click on "Details", you can view your points per exam question along with statistics for each issue. The date and time of the exam inspection will be announced shortly.

Also, someone wrote the below feedback on their exam. While I think that populating the campus with cats is a bit excessive, I liked the idea about the trees. So, I donated 107€ to Greenpeace, which it one Euro per student who passed the main exam. (I don't have proof yet, but I will post that to the forum once I receive it.)

Best wishes,
Sarah

Hello everybody,

Please don't forget to duly register for the main exam, if you want to take part in it. (If you don't want to partake in the main exam, e.g. because you only want to take the re-exam, you can ignore this email.)
Everybody who wants to take the exam has to be registered in the dCMS. Additionally, you probably have to register in the LSF, too.

Case 1 – You are in a study program that can register in the LSF:
Register in the LSF before the deadline. (I suspect that the deadline will be he end of today for most of you.) Also register in the dCMS by the end of tomorrow.
Case 2 – You are in a study program that cannot register in the LSF:
Double-check whether you really cannot register in the LSF. Then register only in the dCMS. Make sure that your subject of study is up to date in the dCMS. If it is not, get in touch before the exam.

If you can register in the LSF, but fail to do so, then I unfortunately cannot let you attend the exam. If you have any questions or experience any problems, get in touch as soon as you can.

Best wishes,
Sarah

Hello everybody,

The feedback for the revisions of Project Phase 5 is out now. Some of you would have failed this submission and therefore lost their exam admission. However, since the feedback took us longer than anticipated, I decided to mark every submission as a "pass".  But I want to make the few groups that got close to failing the resubmission aware that a performance like this would not pass in the exam! So, please make sure to study well for the exam.

Best wishes,
Sarah

Hello everybody,

today, there will be a guest talk by Eric Mayer about Tradeoffs between Faireness and Accuracy. The talk will be in German only, so the following info will be in German, too. Of course, the talk will not be relevant for the exam.

Vortrag von Eric Mayer

Tradeoffs zwischen Fairness und Accuracy in KI: warum wir nicht alles haben können

Donnerstag, 11.07. von 14:15 Uhr bis ca. 15:45 Uhr in HS 003, Geb. E1 3

Heute, am 11.07., findet um 14:15 Uhr ein Gastvortrag von Informatiker und TV-Moderator Eric Mayer mit anschließender Diskussion statt. Der Vortrag wird im Rahmen einer Dokumentation von 3sat gefilmt und je voller der Hörsaal dabei ist, desto besser sieht das natürlich für den SIC aus. Wenn ihr euch für den Vortrag interessiert und/oder einfach mal eine Fernsehproduktion mitbekommen wollt, kommt gerne vorbei. Der Vortrag findet auf Deutsch statt.

Abstract: Learning-basierte Systeme als Entscheider in der Praxis einzusetzen, stellt uns vor zahlreiche Herausforderungen. Eine davon sind die unvermeidlichen Tradeoffs zwischen Fairness und Accuracy in KI-Systemen. Zum einen wollen wir, dass Systeme fair sind, zum anderen, dass sie möglichst genaue Vorhersagen treffen. Der Vortrag beschäftigt sich mit verschiedenen Fairnessmetriken und zeigt, wie ihre Optimierung die Genauigkeit des Modells beeinflusst. Wie mit diesen Tradeoffs umgegenagen werden muss, ist alles andere als klar. Eine von vielen möglichen Lösungen schlagen wir hier vor.

Zum Vortragenden: Eric Mayer hat eigentlich Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft und Amerikanistik studiert, bevor er Moderator wurde. Als sich seinen Fokus immer mehr auf Wissenschaftsjournalismus verschob, beschloss er, noch ein Studium der Informatik anzuhängen. Vor einiger Zeit hat er mit seiner berufsbegleitenden Promotion in Informatik begonnen und wird bald am SIC zu Gast sein. Seine Reise vom Kinderfernsehmoderator zum Wissenschaftler wird hin und wieder von einem Dokuteam begleitet, das auch am 11.07. mit dabei sein wird. Weil die Filmaufnahmen in einer deutschsprachigen Sendung bei 3sat ausgestrahlt werden sollen, ist der Vortrag ausnahmsweise auf Deutsch.

Wichtige Informationen zu den Dreharbeiten und euren Rechten: Ihr solltet nur zum Vortrag kommen, wenn ihr damit einverstanden seid, dass ihr gefilmt werdet. Auch die Diskussion wird gefilmt und eure Fragen werden entsprechend mitaufgenommen. Das Filmteam würde im Anschluss auch gerne einige Fragen an das Publikum richten. Eure Antworten, falls ihr welche geben wollt, wären dann ebenfalls auf den Aufnahmen. Bitte kommt nur, wenn ihr mit den Aufnahmen einverstanden seid. Vor Ort werdet ihr gfls. ein Formular unterschreiben, das dem Team erlaubt, die Aufnahmen von euch auch tatsächlich zu verwenden. Ihr könnt euer Einverständnis für die Filmaufnahmen nicht mehr im Nachhinein zurückziehen. Mehr Datenschutzhinweise findet ihr vor Ort.

Viele Grüße,
Sarah 

Hello again,

There seemingly was confusion about today's slides. So, I want to make a clarification: What's not reasonably clear from in slides of today (especially slides 1-5) is not relevant for the exam. However, there are things that are clearly described on the slides. In fact, almost everything from slide 7 onwards is rather descriptive and has quite a bit of explanatory text. You should have a very rough idea of what these slides say (and not necessarily more than a very rough idea). If you struggle with getting the rough idea of these slides, feel free to come to the office hours.

Best wishes,
Sarah
 

Hello everybody,

Due to technical issues in the Günter Hotz lecture hall, the audio of the lecture was recorded improperly. I only have audio available from the moment I started a manual recording on my phone. Therefore, only the second half of the lecture is available as a video.

• For the first part that is not available as a video, only the slides are relevant for the exam, not what I said during the lecture.
• For the second part that is available as a video, also the video and what I said during the lecture are relevant for the exam.

I apologize for the inconvenience!

Also, lecture evaluations are currently ongoing. If you want to rate the lecture and have not done so already, please go here: https://qualis.uni-saarland.de/eva/?l=149443&p=ugjqur
I would appreciate a lot if you could tell the evaluation office how you feel about Ethics for Nerds.

Best wishes,
Sarah

Hello everyone,

The results of Project Phase 5 are online now. There will be a „Fix My Resubmission“- Session tomorrow at 11:00 in room 107, E1 3 for everyone who has to resubmit. I suspect that it will not be too crowded, so if you want to avoid waiting times, tomorrow would be a good opportunity.

Best wishes,
Sarah

Dear everybody,

Unfortunately, we had to cancel today‘s online training session. In case you wanted to attend, I suggest the following: log in to the session and do the exercises (which you can download in the Materials section of the dCMS) with the other students there. Then, either post your solutions in the Forum to get feedback on them or come to tomorrow‘s online office hour.

Best wishes,
Sarah

Hello everybody,

Last week, the "Fix My Assignment" session was very popular with you. So, we decided that we will have another "Fix My Assignment" session tomorrow and an even longer one next week (see calendar for details). Please use them for your current assignments and for the revise and resubmits of the last assignment. Even though we operate at maximum capacity, there probably will be some wait times, so please come to the session early if you can. Of course, you can also use the regular office hours if you have any questions, for example about assignments.

Also, please start working on your resubmission in time. If you only come to next week's "Fix My Assignment" session and only then learn that your resubmission still has issues, you might not have sufficient time anymore before the deadline to fix these issues. I urge you to take the Revise and Resubmit very seriously, since the consequence of failing it will be that the whole group will not get the exam admission.

If you have general questions, you also can always use the forum to discuss them.

Best wishes,
Sarah

PS: In case you are interested in them, you can now see statistics for the project phases on your personal status page, if you click on the name of the project phase in the section "Tests And Exams". Currently, 38.3% of students passed Project Phase 4. The other 61.7% have to revise and resubmit.

Friday will be the deadline for the current project phase. Those who have last minute questions can go to the Fix My Assignment Session on Friday. There, you will get help with checking the validity of your argument and making sure likely that your assignment will get a pass. The Fix My Assignment Session will take place in room 107 in E1 3 from 11:00 to 13:00. The timing is such that you can join even if you have a lecture in the morning or at noon.

Edit: I formulated my message a bit misleadingly, sorry about that! There will not be hard guarantees for passes in the Fix My Assignment Session, since passes are only decided during the actual correction of the assignment. But Yannic, who will lead the session, will be able to give you a very good idea if your assignment is done well enough yet such that it will get a pass, and he will be able to help you improve in case it still has major issues. (Also, expect some waiting times during Fix My Assignment.)

Best wishes,
Sarah

Hello everyone,

Since I am attending a conference right now and therefore am traveling, I had trouble to find the time to complete the review of your assignments for Project Phase 3 as well as the previous revise and resubmit. Apologies for that! This should not be a disadvantage to you, though. You will receive the assignments over the course of this Tuesday. To compensate for the delay, the deadline for the revise and resubmit was extended one week and the number of revises and resubmits that you are allowed to have was increased by one, so you can revise and resubmit 3 instead of 2 times now.

Best wishes,
Sarah

Hello everyone,

Now that I got your attention by using some good, old click-bait, let me tell you something really important: many students underestimate how much training it needs to write valid arguments. Writing valid arguments is important in this lecture, so you should allocate enough time for that. Project Phase 4 will ask you to write a valid argument, and so will the exam. We suggest the following timeline to learn validity:

1. Until Monday, May 20: Finish watching the videos of PT2 if you have not already done so.
2. Between Tuesday, May 21 and Monday, May 27: Go to one of the Recap Sessions on how to detect invalidity in the arguments of others. There will be at least three in-person and one online recap session on this topic.
3. Between Tuesday, May 28 and Thursday, June 6: Go to one of the Recap Sessions on how to write valid arguments yourselves. There will be at least five in-person and one online recap session on this topic.
4. While you do Project Phase 4: Attend an office hour to get feedback on your argument.

Best wishes,
Sarah

PS: The feedback for Project Phase 2 went online today. You might want to take a look at the feedback that you got on your personal status page.

Hello everybody,

You will get feedback for your first assignment shortly, most likely on Wednesday. You nevertheless can see a submission called "Revise and Resubmit: Project Phase 1" already. This does not mean that you did not pass. Please use this submission only in one of two cases, namely

1. when you missed the deadline for the submission of Project Phase 1 and want to make a late submission.
2. when you failed your first assignment. You can tell when there is a "not passed" displayed next to your assignment.

The same will hold for every project phase except for phase 6 and 7, where no revise and resubmit will be possible.

Best wishes,
Sarah

Hello everybody,

like it was announced, some recap sessions and office hours will take place online in MS teams. Click the following links if you want to participate:

• Online Recap Sessions, Monday 14:15-15:45
• Online Office Hour, Tuesday 12:00-12:20 (or until all questions have been answered)

You can find the times and places of all non-online meetings in the timetable.

Best,
Sarah

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to give you a quick reminder of today's guest lecture. Elijah Millgram is a very proficient philosopher and usually gives awesome talks that are very entertaining. He even took the time to write an alternative abstract for his talk for you (see below).

Title: Instrumentalism, Moral-Theory Overlays, and the Control Problem
Speaker: Elijah Millgram, professor of philosophy from the University of Utah
Date: today at 4pm at the
Place: German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence in building D3 2 (that's next to the Mensa), room Reuse HG 2.17.

Abstract (normal): How do we make sure that the much more capable AI agents of the future behave themselves and don't get out of line? The default response to worries about alignment and the control problem overlays constraints on AI decision making processes which are normally adapted from some familiar moral theory. Examining Stuart Russell's representative proposal makes it clear that recommendations of this kind will not work, and shows why it is a mistake to see the underlying issue as a question of control.
Abstract (fun): You know, evolution tried to build its theory of what we're supposed to be doing into the wetware, and look what *we* did with it: ultraprocessed junk food, rom-coms, and don't forget the bichon frisees and shih tzus. Why think our own attempts to build moral guidelines into future AI are going to fare any better? We should be taking a completely different approach, where our objective is not to *control* the AI agents we build, but to make healthy relationships with them possible, by ensuring that we can get a divorce when we want one.

The lecture is optional, but it will for sure be interesting! The event is public, so if you know anyone else who wants to attend, you can bring them along. The lecture is not recorded or streamed.

I hope to see many of you around!
Sarah

Hello everyone,

Please note that you can find all dates of office hours, recap sessions and deep dive sessions in the timetable. This week, no sessions are taking place. I was informed that there was a mistake in the timetable this morning, falsely claiming that the deep dive session will take place today. If you planned to attend and found yourself in an empty seminar room, please apologize! There will be cookies in the next deep dive session to make it up to you. (Please don't attend for the cookies only, though.)

Best wishes
Sarah

Hello everyone,

Thanks for the great first lecture! I want to let anyone who did not attend the lecture know a few important things and remind those who attended:

1. The Ethics for Nerds study: You are invited to take part in a study on the effects of Ethics for Nerds. It would be a huge help for me if you could take part, and you can even win one of ten gift cards worth 20€. You are entirely anonymous to me, and I will never be able to know what you answered during the survey or whether you even took place. So, there is no risk involved in taking part. You can only take part until the end of this week. You can enter the survey on your personal status page or via a link in an email that you will receive shortly.
    
2. The guest lecture: We will have a guest lecture called "Instrumentalism, Moral-Theory Overlays, and the Control Problem" by Elijah Millgram from the Univeristy of Utah. It will take place this Thursday, on April 25 at 4pm at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence in building D3 2 (that's next to the Mensa), room Reuse HG 2.17. The lecture is optional, but it will for sure be interesting! You can also find the time and location in the timetable. The event is public, so if you know anyone else who wants to attend, you can bring them along.
    
3. Lecture recordings: Please watch the recording of the first lecture if you did not attend, since I explain important information on the course, especially concerning its organization and the exam admission. You can find the lecture recordings and the slides in the dCMS in the Materials section.

Best wishes,
Sarah