Episode Details

Derek Leben is an Associate Teaching Professor of Ethics at the Tepper School of Business. His research focuses on principles of fairness and weighing harms from the perspective of a contractarian ethical theory, and how organizations can implement these principles into standards for AI and autonomous systems. He received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 2012, and taught ethics at the University of Pittsburgh for ten years before joining Tepper. In his book, "Ethics for Robots: how to design a moral algorithm" (Routledge, 2018), Dr. Leben defends a Rawlsian "maximin" principle for autonomous systems which impact human well-being in the fields of transportation, healthcare, and defense. As founder of the consulting group Ethical Algorithms, Dr. Leben has worked with governments and companies to develop policies on fairness and benefit for AI and autonomous systems.