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Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#61

Post by cmurf »

Universally ethical A.I.? No. But then neither are humans. So I refuse the idea that always ethical A.I. is a goal that disqualifies A.I. as being useful.

Government arguably should be an expedient (this is Thoreau's argument anyway), and it's possible A.I. could be at least a more consistent expedient that also commits to ratting itself out anytime its ethical programming is substantially altered. That isn't at all how humans behave, they can't be programmed this way.

Merely having A.I. that concisely points out the competing ethical positions on an issue, would be an improvement to word salad propaganda; propaganda is a significant impediment to both ethical and critical thinking, so an A.I. that were to score statements on a propaganda scale would itself be useful.

https://propagandacritic.com/

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#62

Post by wool_gather »

mLuby wrote: post #40
adjkant wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is unethical about a farmer using AI to figure out the best arrangement of his crops to maximize the food he produces, maintain his land quality, and minimize his environmental impact?

Nothing. But what about when said farmer buys Farm AI 2.0 that also optimizes the livestock side of his farm. The AI has determined it's more efficient to pack cubes into a barn than keep them out in the pasture (the cubes contain chickens or pigs). Now the farmer upgrades to Farm AI 3.0 which also optimizes the business side of his farm. And it decides to fire a bunch of farm hands, perhaps replacing them with cheap…

This has nothing to do with AI. You could say the same about a human agricultural consultant.

A person can absolve their own sense of guilt by saying that they were just following instructions. But the farmer still chose here to use the AI, or to implement its recommendations. A person can even talk themselves out of feeling guilty for a bad choice just by saying "I felt so strongly, I couldn't do anything differently". Some choice was still made by the person; they bear the responsibility even if they don't think they do.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#64

Post by dogma1138 »

wallace_f wrote: post #30
dogma1138 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point, the argument is AI ethical isn’t the same as can AI be ethical. AI is a tool, and while you can say some tools are easier to abuse than others it has not baring on their ethics since tools have no ethics to begin with. And the leverage or force multiplication you get from a tool is directly tied to how easily it can be abused but also to how useful it is to you in general. Is a gun…

How do you not see the contradiction in writing about how no tools are inherently unethical, then say that one tool is inherently unethical because you are scared of it in particular?

I’m not scared of any of it, I don’t think that neither guns nor AI are unethical, nor ethical I don’t anthropomorphize objects.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#65

Post by dogma1138 »

pjc50 wrote: post #16
dogma1138 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point, the argument is AI ethical isn’t the same as can AI be ethical. AI is a tool, and while you can say some tools are easier to abuse than others it has not baring on their ethics since tools have no ethics to begin with. And the leverage or force multiplication you get from a tool is directly tied to how easily it can be abused but also to how useful it is to you in general. Is a gun…

This approach presumes that the ethical responsibility falls on the user of the tool, including the responsibility to see what the effects of use are. Where this starts to break down is autonomous systems - when the system itself makes decisions that could be considered to be ethical, or have significant social effects. Autonomous weapons are the usual example, from landmines to drones, but this also applies to syste…

Because they do as these systems are designed and put into operation by humans and come with an off switch.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#66

Post by dogma1138 »

adjkant wrote: post #15
dogma1138 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point, the argument is AI ethical isn’t the same as can AI be ethical. AI is a tool, and while you can say some tools are easier to abuse than others it has not baring on their ethics since tools have no ethics to begin with. And the leverage or force multiplication you get from a tool is directly tied to how easily it can be abused but also to how useful it is to you in general. Is a gun…

> Is a gun less ethical than a syringe because it can be used for violence? A gun's purpose is to shoot bullets. A syringe has the purpose of delivering fluid into the human body. It's not hard to evaluate the ethics of the most common actions for each of those. While the tool itself technically has no ethics, owning or using the tool tends to have ethical implications. In a practical world, it is very fair to evalua…

There is no such thing as an ethical potential energy it’s not even a useful thought experiment.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#67

Post by dogma1138 »

lukifer wrote: post #19
dogma1138 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point, the argument is AI ethical isn’t the same as can AI be ethical. AI is a tool, and while you can say some tools are easier to abuse than others it has not baring on their ethics since tools have no ethics to begin with. And the leverage or force multiplication you get from a tool is directly tied to how easily it can be abused but also to how useful it is to you in general. Is a gun…

Though I agree in principle, I think tools can’t be considered in isolation, but rather in the context of iterated game theory. Is Instagram inherently evil? Obviously not; but through the lens of pre-existing human social dynamics, including status competition, mating drives, social signaling, etc, the capabilities introduced by that particular tool almost inevitably lead to the perverse incentives of lifestyle faca…

AI isn’t s player it’s as dumb as a rock. The players are still humans that build, maintain, operate and can switch it off.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#68

Post by dogma1138 »

nkozyra wrote: post #46
mLuby wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does an AI (as we have them now)? If I give someone a paper and say "wait a day then follow these instructions", I'm making the decisions, not them, even if the paper has branching logic like "if it's morning, call Alice but if it's afternoon call Bob."

Isn't that the point? Ethics is in the execution, if I make "ethical" instructions and someone follows them, they're operating by the constraints of said ethics. The point is that agents that operate ethically need not be sentient, they just need to play faithfully in our rule sets. Which will sometimes mean eschewing maxima when doing so violates them. It will sometimes mean losses or ties in zero sum games.

Does a bomb makes a decision to explode? What we define and can construct as an AI is no more capable of making a decision than your microwave.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#70

Post by adjkant »

dogma1138 wrote: post #66
adjkant wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is a gun less ethical than a syringe because it can be used for violence? A gun's purpose is to shoot bullets. A syringe has the purpose of delivering fluid into the human body. It's not hard to evaluate the ethics of the most common actions for each of those. While the tool itself technically has no ethics, owning or using the tool tends to have ethical implications. In a practical world, it is very fair to evalua…

There is no such thing as an ethical potential energy it’s not even a useful thought experiment.

> There is no such thing as an ethical potential energy

Yes there is, I just made it up on the spot and defined it! If you mean that it is not a commonly discussed philosophical term then yes, you'd be correct.

> It’s not even a useful thought experiment

Now that's a discussion to bad had that you gave no evidence for its lack of use, while I used it to describe tools that humans use and how an "ethical potential energy" calculation can correlate to the practical effects of a tool, and perhaps how we should view/regulate/restrict said items in the context of humans. You could easily derive firearm laws from such a base if you chose to do so, for example. If that derivation is valid then depends on if the concept has the proper grounding in relation to ethics, which is again a discussion to be had.

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