Linda Eggert

Dr Linda Eggert is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. Her work spans topics in moral and political philosophy as well as the philosophy of law. Most of Linda’s work concerns issues in non-consequentialist ethics. Her project “The Ethics of Delegating to AI” seeks to help us better understand what is at stake in eliminating human decision-making in central areas of human activity. Issues the project explores include the so-called right to a human decision, the relationship between human rights and military applications of AI, and how non-human, artificial agents might throw new light on longstanding questions about rights, reasons, and agency. The project falls under AI2050’s Hard Problem #10 – what it means to be human in the age of AI – and champions the significance of humanistic values in technological innovation. Before taking up her current post, Linda was an Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford, an Interdisciplinary Ethics Fellow at the McCoy Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University, a Fellow-in-Residence at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and a Technology and Human Rights Fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Linda has also taught at Apple University. Her doctorate is from the University of Oxford.

AI2050 Project

Linda Eggert’s AI2050 project examines the ethics of delegating to AI. Its overarching question is: what moral responsibilities do we have to one another as we face unprecedented technological possibilities of delegating decisions to AI? What of moral significance might be lost in eliminating human decision-makers; and do we have a right against algorithmic decision-making in certain contexts? By considering central debates – including about rights, democracy, and justice – in moral and political philosophy, this project throws new light on the fundamental question of what it means to be human in the age of AI.