You know, don't you, that the beginning of every process is most important, especially for anything young and tender? It's at that time that it is most malleable and takes on any pattern one wishes to impress on it." Plato, Republic (377a)

We have been able to delegate to nonhumans not only force as we have known it for centuries but also values, duties, and ethics. It is because of this morality that we, humans, behave so ethically, no matter how weak and wicked we feel we are. The sum of morality does not only remain stable but increases enormously with the population of nonhumans. - Bruno Latour, "Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts."

Ph.D. (Queen’s, Applied Ethics), B.Sc.E. (Queen’s, Engineering Physics), B.A. (uOttawa), M.A. (uOttawa, Phil)

Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Jason Millar is the Canada Research Chair in the Ethical Engineering of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, and Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Engineering. He researches the ethical engineering of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), with a focus on developing tools and methodologies engineers and policymakers can use to integrate ethical thinking into their daily engineering and policy development workflows. Dr. Millar’s work concerns applications including automated and connected mobility systems, artificial intelligence, smart cities, healthcare robotics, social and military robotics. He has a degree in engineering physics, and worked for several years as an engineer before turning his full-time attention to issues in philosophy and applied ethics.

Dr. Millar is a member of the Connected and Automated Vehicles and Shared Mobility Panel at the Canadian Council of Academies (CCA). He is also a Faculty Member at uOttawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society (CLTS), Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, and Institute for Science, Society and Policy (ISSP) where he leads the AI and Robotics Research and Engagement Cluster.

Dr. Millar’s approach to research is interdisciplinary to the core. He approaches his work with the assumption that ethical considerations, technology development, and related technology policy must be co-developed in order to align robotics and AI with key human values like diversity and trustworthiness.

Dr. Millar is Director of the Canadian Robotics and AI Ethical Design Lab (CRAiEDL), which he founded in 2018 after joining uOttawa. CRAiEDL is home to a growing interdisciplinary team of researchers and students, with expertise in fields spanning the humanities, social sciences, and science and engineering.

Dr. Millar has authored book chapters, policy reports, and articles on the ethics and governance of robotics and AI. Jason recently co-authored a discussion paper on Accountability and Trust in AI, as one of Canada’s contributions to the 2018 G7 meeting on AI in Montreal. He has provided expert testimony at the UN CCW and the Senate of Canada on the ethics of military robotics, and consults internationally on robotics and AI policy, and ethical engineering issues in emerging automation technologies. His work is regularly featured in the media, including articles in publications such as WIRED and The Guardian, and interviews with the BBC, CBC and NPR. He recently authored a chapter on ethics settings for autonomous vehicles in Robot Ethics 2.0 (OUP), and co-authored a chapter on metaphors in technology governance for the Oxford Handbook on the Law and Regulation of Technology (OUP).