ETHICALLY SPEAKING
An interdisciplinary speaker series on contemporary moral issues
Gene editing. Artificial intelligence. A changing climate. Intersections of technology, values and communities in our rapidly changing world raise important ethical questions. Join us for a series of lectures by nationally renowned researchers, thinkers and leaders who will explore contemporary issues, ethically speaking.
Schedule 2026-27
AI and the Right to Refusal: A Panel Discussion
Vikram Bhargava, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Strategic Management, Public Policy, & Philosophy, School of Business, George Washington University
International Research Fellow, Centre for Corporate Reputation
University of Oxford
April 17, 2026 at 3pm Eastern
John C. Hitt Library, Room 223, UCF Main Campus
Many of the most widely discussed ethical concerns regarding AI algorithms pertain to bad outcomes: Were its decisions accurate? Were there unforeseen bad consequences? Were untoward biases reflected in the judgments of the algorithms? In this presentation, Dr. Bhargava will argue that even if these bad outcomes are ultimately engineered away, it still doesn’t settle the question of whether managers should defer to algorithms. This is not because managerial gut instincts are far superior—often they’re not. Rather, there are important (and overlooked) ethical values that become evident when we make choices, and that process would be jeopardized if abdicated to an algorithm. This is so, no matter how sophisticated algorithms ultimately become at prediction.
Vikram R. Bhargava holds a joint Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Ethics & Legal Studies (The Wharton School) and Philosophy (School of Arts and Sciences). He also is co-editor of the section on technology and business ethics in the Journal of Business Ethics. His research centers around the distinctive ethics and policy issues that technology gives rise to in organizational contexts. He is interested in technology addiction, mass social media outrage, hiring algorithms and the future of work, autonomous vehicles, and other topics related to artificial intelligence (AI). Dr. Bhargava has been interviewed by NPR, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal and has spoken at the Harvard Business School, Stanford Law School, and the University of Oxford. He also has written for popular audiences at the San Francisco Chronicle, Al Jazeera, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and Newsweek. He has won the Outstanding Undergraduate Faculty of the Year award, V.I.P. Professor Award, and the Career Influencer Award. He delivers annual visiting lectures on digital technology policy and ethics to graduate students at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and Thayer School of Engineering, and he has taught courses at Wharton on multiple occasions.
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Sponsors of Ethically Speaking
- Center for Ethics, UCF
- Colleges of Graduate Studies, UCF
- College of Science, UCF
- College of Community Innovation and Education, UCF
- CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, UCF
- College of Arts and Humanities, UCF
- Office of Compliance, Ethics, and Risk, UCF
- Department of Chemistry
- Department of Physics
- Department of Philosophy
- Department of Psychology
- Department of Biology
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering