Amidst the noise of rapid technological shifts, the ethical dilemmas of artificial intelligence can feel entirely unprecedented. Yet, the core tensions it raises – around power, fairness, and responsibility – are deeply familiar. Cranlana faculty Jacqueline Stone and Emma Greenwood explore why navigating the future of AI requires us to look backward, drawing on timeless philosophical tools to sharpen our judgment today.
It is difficult to listen to a podcast, attend a conference or scroll through LinkedIn at the moment without encountering a confident prediction about artificial intelligence. Entire industries will be transformed. Jobs will disappear. New ones will emerge. Algorithms will make decisions faster, better and more efficiently than any human committee ever could. Or, depending on the speaker, the way we live and the pillars of society will soon collapse.
Ethicists, it must be said, rather enjoy these moments.
Not because upheaval is desirable, but because the friction forces us to confront questions that are usually buried beneath routine. Questions about power, fairness, responsibility and the kind of society we are trying to build have a habit of surfacing when familiar systems wobble.
Artificial intelligence is the current catalyst for these conversations. It raises obvious issues: surveillance, privacy, economic participation, manipulation and the changing nature of work. If algorithms increasingly shape who gets a loan, a job interview, a prison sentence or a medical diagnosis, then questions about fairness and accountability move from the margins of policy discussion to the centre. Or at least they should.
It is therefore no surprise that AI ethics has suddenly become fashionable. Experts emerge. Panels are convened. Frameworks are published. New principles are declared with reassuring regularity.
The risk in moments like this is that we begin to treat ethical reflection as a purely technical exercise, a matter of developing the right guardrails, metrics or governance frameworks. These are important, of course. Yet the deeper questions are more nuanced and stubborn than any single technology.
- Who should benefit from prosperity?
- What obligations do institutions have to the vulnerable?
- How much freedom should individuals sacrifice for collective security?
- What does meaningful economic participation require?
- What obligations do we have to others?
- What kinds of power are legitimate?
Image: Looking forward at the 2017 Sir Vincent Fairfax Oration at Ormond College
Because these are not new dilemmas, it can be useful to look backwards in order to look forwards.
The Cranlana Colloquium operates on this premise. Rather than assuming that every new problem requires entirely new thinking, it invites participants to revisit the intellectual tools that have helped societies grapple with moral and political questions for centuries. It emphasises the importance of practical wisdom in making decisions that shape our world and critically for senior leaders, decisions that shape the world for others.
Aristotle, for instance, was deeply interested in the relationship between character, habit and the health of a community. His insight that ethical behaviour is cultivated through practice rather than abstract rule-following feels surprisingly relevant in an age of algorithmic decision-making and the increasing risk of ethical drift. Confucius explored how social harmony depends not only on formal laws but on shared expectations about responsibility and respect. Virginia Held emphasised that all our decisions are made in the context of webs of personal relationships, affiliations and interdependencies giving rise to specific responsibilities. Hobbes and Locke wrestled with the fragile contract that allows individuals to coexist within political societies without descending into chaos. Simone Weil pointed out our tendency to be dazzled by certain people simply through chance or affinity, turning our attention from those in front of us who are suffering.
Photo credit: Anna Hunko c/o Unsplash
These thinkers did not anticipate artificial intelligence. But they were acutely aware of human nature and the tensions that arise whenever individuals pursue their own interests while relying on the cooperation of others.
More modern debates continue the story. Milton Friedman famously argued that the primary responsibility of business is to increase its profits within the rules of the game.
John Rawls challenged us to imagine designing institutions from behind a “veil of ignorance,” not knowing where we ourselves might end up within them. Michael Sandel has spent much of his career examining the moral limits of markets and the social consequences of treating every decision as an economic transaction. Building on the work of Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum emphasised that not only must a healthy society educate people to have the capacity for critical thinking, but it must also ensure they have the freedom to voice critical views.
One does not have to agree with any of these thinkers to find them useful. Their arguments offer lenses through which contemporary problems can be examined from multiple angles. They remind us that ethical disagreement is not necessarily a sign of confusion or failure. Often it simply reflects different starting points about what justice, freedom or prosperity ought to mean.
The aim is not to produce a definitive answer to the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence, or global markets, or institutional trust. Such answers rarely survive first contact with reality. Instead, the value lies in something more modest and more enduring, the sharpening of judgment.
Image: c/o Anthropic
Leadership in uncertain and disruptive times is rarely, if ever, about having perfect information. More often it involves navigating competing values, incomplete evidence and unpredictable consequences. In such circumstances, the quality of the questions we ask can matter more than the speed with which we answer them even as we are pressed to answer more and more quickly.
Looking backwards can help here.
The accumulated arguments of philosophers, writers, economists and political theorists form a kind of intellectual toolkit, one that allows us to recognise patterns, challenge assumptions and identify gaps in our thinking.
Technological change often moves faster than our ethical frameworks.
New forms of power emerge before we have worked out how they should be governed. The task for leaders is not simply to apply inherited ideas, but to adapt them, modernise them and occasionally discard them when they no longer serve.
In an era of rapid technological change and economic uncertainty, those habits may prove as valuable as any algorithm. And if nothing else, it is reassuring to discover that when confronting the future, it can still be helpful to have Aristotle, Rawls, Nussbaum and a few good colleagues in the room.
How do you anticipate the ethical tensions and outcomes of adopting AI in your work, and leadership?
A Cranlana Colloquium experience brings these ideas into conversation with present realities. Participants encounter readings that stretch from ancient philosophy to contemporary political economy. They debate with leaders from different sectors and professional backgrounds. They test arguments against lived experience, the messy, practical world where leaders must actually make decisions where those decisions have real and lasting impact.
A week spent discussing these questions may not produce immediate solutions. It will, however, cultivate the habits that thoughtful leadership requires, curiosity, humility, intellectual courage and the ability to engage respectfully with people who disagree.
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