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Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#81

Post by dogma1138 »

coldtea wrote: post #80
dogma1138 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> AI isn’t s player it’s as dumb as a rock. That's a religious view of AI and humans, where humans have special qualities (like soul and consciousness) perhaps evolved "magically" or "god given", that a machine can't have. There are no serious arguments why an AI can't have perfect human-like consciousness, feelings and everything. Inversely, there are no serious arguments why humans are special in any way, and their…

Humans aren’t special but what we have as an AI today and for foreseeable future is capable making as many decisions as your microwave.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#82

Post by dogma1138 »

adjkant wrote: post #71
dogma1138 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AI today is that dumb, but I think the parent comment is discussing a theoretical AGI nearing or possessing consciousness. A bit irrelevant for today's moral conversation on AI but a very interesting one down the line if we ever do get to that point.

Let’s have this talk in 3 centuries then.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#83

Post by dogma1138 »

coldtea wrote: post #79
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…

> 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. For one, that argument only holds for tools without conscience (e.g. a hammer or a headphone). AI, though, is precisely the kind of tool that can be capable to have ethics. Second, even dumb tools without ethics of their own, can be ethically problematic (e.g. a…

Tools cannot have ethics since tools do not define ethics, society does and ethics aren’t universal or static.

We are barely capable of defining and arguing ethics as a society claiming that a microwave would be able to make ethical decisions is laughable.

P.S. A bomb is no more ethically problematic than a bottle coke.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#84

Post by coldtea »

dogma1138 wrote: post #81
coldtea wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI isn’t s player it’s as dumb as a rock. That's a religious view of AI and humans, where humans have special qualities (like soul and consciousness) perhaps evolved "magically" or "god given", that a machine can't have. There are no serious arguments why an AI can't have perfect human-like consciousness, feelings and everything. Inversely, there are no serious arguments why humans are special in any way, and their…

Humans aren’t special but what we have as an AI today and for foreseeable future is capable making as many decisions as your microwave.

We already have AI that can make the decision or not to step on a kid passing the street in self driving cars.

The ethical/conscious part is a matter of degree, not necessarily of quality.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#85

Post by dogma1138 »

coldtea wrote: post #84
dogma1138 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans aren’t special but what we have as an AI today and for foreseeable future is capable making as many decisions as your microwave.

We already have AI that can make the decision or not to step on a kid passing the street in self driving cars. The ethical/conscious part is a matter of degree, not necessarily of quality.

No we don’t, the “AI” didn’t made any decisions it only follows its programming.

It also doesn’t know what a kid is nor does it makes any decisions based on the info even if it did. It is tasked with avoiding collisions it does not make ethical decisions any more than my microwave makes an ethical decision of not to burn my food when I use a fixed program to defrost chicken.

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#86

Post by coldtea »

dogma1138 wrote: post #83
coldtea wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. For one, that argument only holds for tools without conscience (e.g. a hammer or a headphone). AI, though, is precisely the kind of tool that can be capable to have ethics. Second, even dumb tools without ethics of their own, can be ethically problematic (e.g. a…

Tools cannot have ethics since tools do not define ethics, society does and ethics aren’t universal or static. We are barely capable of defining and arguing ethics as a society claiming that a microwave would be able to make ethical decisions is laughable. P.S. A bomb is no more ethically problematic than a bottle coke.

>Tools cannot have ethics since tools do not define ethics, society does and ethics aren’t universal or static.

Which is still beside the point.

As I already wrote, an advanced AI is a tool that can precisely define ethics for itself or adopt ones.

Plus, as I also already wrote, even if a tool has no ethics, it can be ethically problematic (to society), so that is something we should discuss too.

>We are barely capable of defining and arguing ethics as a society claiming that a microwave would be able to make ethical decisions is laughable.

Which is again irrelevant, as an AI is not a microwave -- and future AI even less so. We are capable of seeing/discussing even things that are not immediately in front of us...

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#87

Post by coldtea »

dogma1138 wrote: post #64
wallace_f wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OK, so you wouldn't be scared if we gave guns to everybody in your city except you.

There are mere guns, they are not problematic in themselves, it's how people use them.

No reason to think giving everybody in your city a gun would be any different in its outcome to you (and the city's wellbeing) than giving everybody a banana...

/s

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#88

Post by lemagedurage »

CM30 wrote: post #72
lemagedurage wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet murder is a punishable offense and people seem just fine with that. The law is an accepted and used set of actions that are considered bad, with associated repercussions. It's a best effort and it _works_. Why would AI have to reinvent the wheel here?

Well, most moral philosophies usually hold some very basic things as wrong, murder and stealing being among them. However, the issue is that it's very culturally dependent on WHY it's seen as wrong, and it's the reason behind WHY something is seen as wrong that the more complex elements of ethics are built on. A utilitarian vs a deontologist vs a virtue theorist vs a follower of almost any religion vs a supporter of…

This however seems more of a problem in philosophy than in governments. AI can cover the laws of the country in which it runs. The laws define the edge cases more more thoroughly than any philosophical school of thought. It raises questions like

If we can derive morality from first principles, why hasn't someone applied this to the legal system yet?

If we can't derive morality from first principles, why would we need to invent that for world changing technology to happen?

Wouldn't it be a lot more in line with the population's sense of morality to train the AI based on our current laws than on some generalizing philosophical view?

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#89

Post by lemagedurage »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #55
lemagedurage wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet murder is a punishable offense and people seem just fine with that. The law is an accepted and used set of actions that are considered bad, with associated repercussions. It's a best effort and it _works_. Why would AI have to reinvent the wheel here?

Murder is the taking of a life in a manner/context which is considered bad by definition. If you consider there are many situations where the taking of a life is considered politically or economically expedient, ethically justified, or a social or cultural necessity, the ethics of life-taking become a lot less straightforward. One of the greatest potential benefits of AI is that having to define our ethics explicitly…

In Holland we have a law which states that you can drink a maximum amount of alcohol before driving. This amount is based on research of how the alcohol concentration affects a human's ability to do things like driving. This is a sensible approach.

How could AI ever reach such a specific conclusion?

Re: Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

#90

Post by lemagedurage »

pixl97 wrote: post #49
lemagedurage wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet murder is a punishable offense and people seem just fine with that. The law is an accepted and used set of actions that are considered bad, with associated repercussions. It's a best effort and it _works_. Why would AI have to reinvent the wheel here?

Great, murder is one tiny issue in the huge ethical problem space, and probably the simplest as dead and not dead is pretty binary. Now define suffering algorithmically.

Well there's laws that to about hurting people
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