Research in Fire Engineering: Ethics in AI for Fire Engineering - A Panel Discussion

The rise in the development and deployment of Artificial Intelligence-based tools and technologies has inspired a range of important questions about how these new technologies are—or will—impact people’s everyday lives around the world. Many of these technologies are evolving rapidly, often out-pacing efforts to develop legal requirements, codes, or guidance about their use. This development led the authors of the SFPE Foundation’s Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Cybersecurity white paper to conclude (2023, 33): “While much has been written and discussed on the ethics of AI in general, there is to date no research that addresses the ethics of using AI in fire protection specifically. This indicates a major knowledge gap that has ramifications for the field as it continues to build and investigate applications for AI in fire engineering. Ethical governance is necessary to build trust within the public, that they will accept the use of AI to protect them in the built environment. As a discipline, we need to agree on ethical principles or guidelines for AI development. Will our AI systems be transparent? How will we govern the enormous amounts of data we collect in smart buildings for FP systems? What are the ethics of allowing AI to make critical decisions without human oversight?” To help advance these kinds of discussions, the SFPE Foundation and GCI Partners are hosting an AI in Fire Engineering Summit this May. Ahead of that meeting, this open-access pre-conference panel discussion brings together experts from several different fields to share their perspectives on what it means to think through the ethical considerations involved in utilizing some of these new technologies in a life safety field like fire protection. Attendees will hear from each panelist regarding what they see as some of the most important areas to highlight when it comes to examining situations where there might be trade-offs between different values or goals, and what kinds of questions fire protection professionals should be asking themselves and others as we increasingly encounter these technologies in our work.