Higher Education · Artificial Intelligence
AI Ethics
What is it
AI ethics examines the social, moral and legal implications of AI systems — covering bias and fairness, privacy, transparency, accountability, and the broader societal impact of automating decisions that affect people's lives.
Why it matters
As AI systems increasingly make or influence consequential decisions — hiring, lending, medical diagnosis, criminal justice — understanding their ethical implications isn't optional for a computer scientist; it's a core professional responsibility, and organisations increasingly require this literacy from their technical staff.
Exam tip
When analysing an AI system for ethical concerns, consider not just whether the algorithm itself is biased, but whether the training data reflects historical inequalities that the model will learn and perpetuate — bias in AI most often originates in the data, not the algorithm itself, and identifying this distinction is a frequently tested and genuinely important skill.
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