Beyond the Conference

AI ethics is set to play a critical role in the development of social standards for Canada's digital era. Gartner Analytics top ten strategic technology trends for 2019 include both AI-driven development and Digital Ethics among the ten leading trends of 2019, highlighting the growing concern and focus on ethics for AI over the last number of years.

As the University of Alberta is a global leader in AI research and development as well as the official host of the International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE), whose focus on Digital Ethics has led the field for two decades, it is both timely and advantageous for the development of a conference hosted at the University that addresses the combination of AI, Ethics and Society. 2019 will see the transfer of the International Center for Information Ethics and its journal, the International Review of Information Ethics, from Germany to the Kule Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Alberta, bringing the well-established international community of Information Ethics scholars, with expertise in AI ethics, to the University of Alberta.

ICIE, hosted by KIAS, will serve as a hub, connecting world leading innovation in AI with established experts in the field of information ethics. As part of this partnership the Center will publish selected papers and relevant practical contributions from the conference within a year in special issues of the International Review of Information Ethics (IRIE). KIAS and ICIE will provide the editorial support to facilitate the editing and review of the papers. IRIE is a digitally archived open access journal.