The SIENNA project is an international EU-based consortium dedicated to examining and addressing ethical issues in three new and emerging technology areas: human genomics, human enhancement and human-machine interaction. This third track, which examines the ethics and governance of both artificial intelligence and robotics, overlapped with work being done as part of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society’s Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative, and that connection offered the Center a chance to contribute to a larger multinational effort. Berkman Klein joined the SIENNA consortium as an associate partner focusing solely on the artificial intelligence and robotics research track. Chris Bavitz and Adam Holland formed the core of the BKC team working on SIENNA materials, with key support during summer 2018 from intern Andrea Nishi.
Other SIENNA partner organizations span the globe and include University of Twente (Netherlands), Trilateral Research (United Kingdom), Uppsala University (Sweden), Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (Poland), European Network of Research Ethics Committees (Germany), University of Granada (Spain), Ionian University (Greece), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Dalian University of Technology (China), University of Maastricht (Netherlands), and the University of Cape Town (South Africa).
Each consortium partner produced three related and country-specific reports: a survey and legal analysis of existing relevant law and regulations; a survey and sampling of existing and relevant ethical codes, and a survey and sampling of on-point academic articles and recent more “popular” news and media. The SIENNA core team then synthesized these into a larger report, and also produced a “state of the art” review of the state of artificial intelligence and robotics generally. Adam Holland also participated in SIENNA consortium workshops in the fall of 2018 and 2019
The Berkman Klein Center’s SIENNA outputs included the following:
a survey and legal analysis of existing United States law and regulations;
a survey and sampling of relevant professional ethics codes; and
a survey and sampling of academic articles and “popular” news and media.
The main SIENNA website can be found here.