This is a recording of Professor Luciano Floridi’s Turing Lecture: Social Science and Ethics at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s National Institute for Data Science.

With the help of some metaphors, in this talk Luciano outlines the nature and scope of Information Ethics, the new philosophical area of research that investigates the ethical impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on human life and society. In the course of the presentation, he introduces some of the topics he has analysed in The Ethics of Information, (OUP 2013), a book in which he has sought to provide the conceptual foundations of Information Ethics, and some work in progress he is currently developing for The Politics of Information (OUP, forthcoming).

About the Alan Turing Institute

The Alan Turing Institute is the UK’s National Institute for Data Science. The Institute’s mission is to: undertake data science research at the intersection of computer science, mathematics, statistics and systems engineering; provide technically informed advice to policy makers on the wider implications of algorithms; enable researchers from industry and academia to work together to undertake research with practical applications; and act as a magnet for leaders in academia and industry from around the world to engage with the UK in data science and its applications.

The Institute is headquartered at The British Library, at the heart of London’s knowledge quarter, and brings together leaders in advanced mathematics and computing science from the five founding universities and other partners. Its work is expected to encompass a wide range of scientific disciplines and be relevant to a large number of business sectors.

About the speakers

  • Professor Luciano Floridi

    Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

    Luciano Floridi is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford, where he is the Director of Research of the Oxford Internet Institute. His most recent books, all published by Oxford University Press, are: The Fourth Revolution – How the infosphere is reshaping human reality (2014), The Ethics of Information (2013), The Philosophy of Information (2011). Among his current positions, he is member of Google Advisory Board on “the right to be forgotten” and Chairman of the Ethics Advisory Board of the European Medical Information Framework (EMIF).