Can AI be deployed in ways that enhance equality, or will AI systems exacerbate structural inequalities and create new inequities?
The Artificial Intelligence & Equality Initiative (AIEI) is an innovative impact-oriented community of practice seeking to understand the innumerable ways in which AI impacts equality for better or worse. We work to empower ethics in AI so that it is deployed in a just, responsible, and inclusive manner.
View AIEI's Board of Advisors.
For AIEI-related inquiries, please contact Carnegie Council Chief of Staff Melissa Semeniuk: [email protected]
The Artificial Intelligence & Equality Initiative seeks to:
Build
Build the foundation for an inclusive dialogue—an Agora—to probe issues related to the benefits, risks, tradeoffs, and tensions that AI fosters.
Nurture
Nurture an interdisciplinary, intergenerational community of practice to rapidly address urgent challenges in the uses of AI and other novel technologies.
Establish
Establish a forum for those in positions where they must make considered choices and decisions about the development and deployment of AI applications.
Forge
Forge transparent, cross-disciplinary, and inclusive conversations and guided inquiries.
Empower
Empower ethics as a tool for making thoughtful decisions about embedding AI systems and applications in the fabric of daily life.
Featured Content & Analysis
SEP 29, 2023 • Article
Envisioning Modalities for AI Governance: A Response from AIEI to the UN Tech Envoy
JUN 5, 2023 • Article
Are We Automating the Banality and Radicality of Evil?
Current iterations of AI are increasingly able to encourage subservience to a non-human master, telling potentially systematic untruths with emphatic confidence.
SEP 6, 2023 • Podcast
Can We Code Power Responsibly? with Carl Miller
In this thought-provoking episode, Carl Miller tackles the pressing questions: Can we code power responsibly? And moreover, how do we define "power" in this context?
AIEI Team
Wendell Wallach
Carnegie-Uehiro Fellow, Artificial Intelligence & Equality Initiative (AIEI); Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
Anja Kaspersen
Carnegie Council Senior Fellow, Artificial Intelligence & Equality Initiative (AIEI); IEEE
How does AI impact equality, for better or worse?
Structural inequality is the result of a broad array of political, economic, social, and cultural factors. The socio-technical systems that are the result of introducing innovations into this mix have become increasingly destabilizing. The sheer ubiquity and speed by which AI-based systems are permeating our lives is disruptive of countless industries and institutions. Growing monopolies of proprietary data have and continue to rapidly empower digital elites and new digital alliances. And yet the understanding of exactly how social and technical systems interact and how to govern them globally, regionally, or locally lags far behind. To complicate matters, some applications of AI may actually reduce inequality or enhance equality in discreet ways. AIEI is working to unpack this difficult and highly transdisciplinary terrain to ensure that AI is developed and deployed in a just, responsible, and inclusive manner. Read more.
Why are we failing at the ethics of AI?
The last few years have seen a proliferation of initiatives on ethics and AI. Whether formal or informal, led by companies, governments, and international and non-profit organizations, these initiatives have developed a plethora of principles and guidance to support the responsible use of AI systems and algorithmic technologies. Despite these efforts, few have managed to make any real impact in modulating the effects of AI. Read more.
Latest Podcasts, Events, & Articles

JAN 4, 2023 • Podcast
Neuroethics: An Ethics of Technology, with Dr. Joseph Fins
In this far-reaching "Artificial Intelligence & Equality" podcast, Weill Cornell's Dr. Joseph Fins discusses with Senior Fellow Wendell Wallach the hype and realities surrounding contemporary neuroscience ...

OCT 25, 2022 • Article
A Manifesto on Enforcing Law in the Age of "Artificial Intelligence"
"A Manifesto on Enforcing Law in the Age of 'Artificial Intelligence'" was recently presented at a gathering in Rome, with a focus of design of ...

OCT 17, 2022 • Article
Recommended "Artificial Intelligence & Equality" Podcasts for Global Ethics Day 2022
These podcasts cover many of the issues that AIEI has been focused on over the past year. On this Global Ethics Day, we encourage you ...

SEP 29, 2022 • Article
Long-termism: An Ethical Trojan Horse
"Long-termism," the idea that the fate of humanity should be our top moral priority, has gained prominence recently in the writings of philosopher William MacAskill ...