Conservancy’s Executive Director to Keynote AI Law & Ethics Conference

Conservancy’s Executive Director to Keynote AI Law & Ethics Conference

Karen Sandler To Explain the Ethical Implications of AI Without Software Freedom

March 23, 2021

This Friday 26 March 2021, Karen M. Sandler, President & Executive Director of the
Software Freedom Conservancy, will keynote the second day of the Leuven AI Law & Ethics Conference (LAILEC) 2021. Karen’s keynote will cover key issues about the ethics and morality
of a world increasingly controlled by AI algorithms and software embedded in our bodies.

After more than a decade of fighting for the right to see the source code of the heart device implanted
in her own body, Karen will speak to a conference of AI researchers and industry professionals
to help them understand the problems that are often ignored. Too often, our focus on the problems
of massive data collection and AI algorithms that analyze it simply ignores the basic fact that so
few people can even review the codebases and training sets that create this dystopia. Drawing on her own experience of living with proprietary software in her own body, Karen will introduce these researchers and praticitioners about the concept of software freedom and why it must be paramount in their minds
when utilizing AI as part of their software.

While registration for this event is now closed, Karen will join the public on our weekly
IRC chat this Thursday at 19:00 UTC on #conservancy on Freenode to discuss this talk and take questions, and our Policy Fellow, Bradley M. Kuhn, will interview Karen about these concepts as part
of their regular podcast, Free as in Freedom in a future episode.