DDfV Researchers Co-Applicants in Two New NWO Gravitation Programmes

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has announced the new funding awards within its Gravitation programme, worth some €113 million. DDfV researchers are co-applicants in two of the six new programmes. TPM professors Sabine Roeser and Ibo van de Poel take part in the programme Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies. EWI professor Catholijn Jonker participates in the programme on Hybrid Intelligence: Augmenting Human Intellect.

The Gravitation programme, financed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), focuses on outstanding scientific research programmes. The funding awards enable leading researchers to spend a ten-year period engaged in innovative research and collaborative activities of a fundamental nature. The two awarded research programmes in which DDfV researchers are involved are:

Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies

Main applicant: UT; funding award: € 17.9 million; TU Delft / DDfV co-applicants: Prof Ibo van de Poel and Prof Sabine Roeser (Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management)

New technological developments are currently happening at an impressive rate. They include innovations in artificial intelligence, robotics, synthetic biology, nanomedication, molecular biology and neurotechnology. These very different examples have one thing in common: they have the potential to bring about major changes to everyday life, socially, culturally and economically. But they also raise complex moral issues that call for ethical reflection. In other words, they are socially disruptive technologies (SDTs).

This programme will develop new methods needed to gain a better understanding of the development and implementation of the new generation of disruptive technologies, to enable a moral evaluation and to make it possible to intervene in the way in which the technology develops in the future. This will partly involve enhancing cooperation between experts in ethics, philosophers and leading technological scientists and engineers focusing on responsible and sustainable innovation.

The Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies is the first project in the field of ethics and technology to receive funding from the Gravitation programme.

Hybrid Intelligence: Augmenting Human Intellect

Main applicant: VU; funding award: € 19.0 million; TU Delft / DDfV co-applicant: Prof Catholijn Jonker (Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science)

Hybrid Intelligence (HI) is a combination of human and artificial intelligence (AI). This programme involves the development of theory and methods for intelligent systems that collaborate with humans, can adapt to changing circumstances and explain their actions. In the development of these HI systems, ethical and legal values, such as transparency, accountability and trust, are explicitly taken into account. Applications focus on such areas as healthcare, education and science.

The challenge in this programme is to answer the following question: how do we build adaptive intelligent systems that enhance human intelligence rather than replacing it while also increasing our strengths and compensating for our weaknesses? This question is radically different from the approach in mainstream AI, which is based on autonomous systems that can replace humans. Answering the central question calls for new multidisciplinary lines of research and will not only deliver new scientific insights and applications, but will also play a crucial role in the debate about artificial intelligence and policy relating to ethics around AI