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There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

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Re: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

#11

Post by curiousgal »

whymauri wrote: post #6

>This is the belief that A.I. codes are recipes for automating ethics itself; and that once a broad consensus around such codes has been achieved, the problem of determining an ethically positive future direction for computer code will have begun to be solved. I can think of literally nobody who believes this. I don't think anyone working in ethical AI would pretend that ethics can be "solved."

There always seems to be a disconnect between tech philosophers and the technology they write about. Maybe they should try to actually work on 'AI' before preaching about it.

To confirm your point a simple example is when working on an automated classifier for loan applications. One way to make the system more ethical, that is less descriminating based on certain features like race or gender, is to often lower the threshold of acceptance for the marginalized classes and raise it for the other ones. Anyone who had to do that sees how it poses a dilemma of equality vs fairness or even fairness vs cost. So indeed, ethics cannot be solved.

Re: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

#12

Post by nine_k »

If you need a refresher on the perils of ethical AI, Asimov's "Three laws of robotics" stories are as fresh as 60 years ago [1].

I'd like to remind that humans themselves are not that good at ethics, both in philosophy and in daily life; they are worse yet on agreeing what ethics to adhere to. You can imagine how well it could be automated then.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics

Re: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

#13

Post by msla »

curiousgal wrote: post #11
whymauri wrote: post #6

>This is the belief that A.I. codes are recipes for automating ethics itself; and that once a broad consensus around such codes has been achieved, the problem of determining an ethically positive future direction for computer code will have begun to be solved. I can think of literally nobody who believes this. I don't think anyone working in ethical AI would pretend that ethics can be "solved."

There always seems to be a disconnect between tech philosophers and the technology they write about. Maybe they should try to actually work on 'AI' before preaching about it. To confirm your point a simple example is when working on an automated classifier for loan applications. One way to make the system more ethical, that is less descriminating based on certain features like race or gender, is to often lower the th…

> One way to make the system more ethical, that is less descriminating based on certain features like race or gender, is to often lower the threshold of acceptance for the marginalized classes and raise it for the other ones.

Or don't input those values at all. Is it even legal for a human to take those things into consideration? Regardless, the AI morally shouldn't, so there's no reason for the data to even be in the input.

Re: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

#14

Post by billjings »

curiousgal wrote: post #11
whymauri wrote: post #6

>This is the belief that A.I. codes are recipes for automating ethics itself; and that once a broad consensus around such codes has been achieved, the problem of determining an ethically positive future direction for computer code will have begun to be solved. I can think of literally nobody who believes this. I don't think anyone working in ethical AI would pretend that ethics can be "solved."

There always seems to be a disconnect between tech philosophers and the technology they write about. Maybe they should try to actually work on 'AI' before preaching about it. To confirm your point a simple example is when working on an automated classifier for loan applications. One way to make the system more ethical, that is less descriminating based on certain features like race or gender, is to often lower the th…

This seems to be a limitation of the tool, yes?

Re: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

#15

Post by cmendel »

msla wrote: post #13
curiousgal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There always seems to be a disconnect between tech philosophers and the technology they write about. Maybe they should try to actually work on 'AI' before preaching about it. To confirm your point a simple example is when working on an automated classifier for loan applications. One way to make the system more ethical, that is less descriminating based on certain features like race or gender, is to often lower the th…

> One way to make the system more ethical, that is less descriminating based on certain features like race or gender, is to often lower the threshold of acceptance for the marginalized classes and raise it for the other ones. Or don't input those values at all. Is it even legal for a human to take those things into consideration? Regardless, the AI morally shouldn't, so there's no reason for the data to even be in th…

Right; however, the problem is that ML is generally pretty good at finding underlying patterns in data, so even if you make an algorithm race-blind it can still construct a dummy variable that is effectively race.

Unfortunately, it does this by codifying pre-existant social outcomes which are often not free of bias.

Re: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

#16

Post by joe_the_user »

There are a couple of different issues.

1) The author's point. That we don't agree on what's ethical so how can we program it?

2) But also, today's AIs aren't mechanism for understanding and balancing a multitude of interests and requirements. They are effectively pattern recognition machines, matching data with categories (or outcomes or etc). So even if you had some criteria formulated, an AI couldn't really do that. I mean, if you true, unlimited intelligence, you might just say "decide like the US supreme court would" and the might be able to do. But we don't even have something that could remotely be challenged that we.

Re: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

#17

Post by RobPfeifer »

curiousgal wrote: post #11
whymauri wrote: post #6

>This is the belief that A.I. codes are recipes for automating ethics itself; and that once a broad consensus around such codes has been achieved, the problem of determining an ethically positive future direction for computer code will have begun to be solved. I can think of literally nobody who believes this. I don't think anyone working in ethical AI would pretend that ethics can be "solved."

There always seems to be a disconnect between tech philosophers and the technology they write about. Maybe they should try to actually work on 'AI' before preaching about it. To confirm your point a simple example is when working on an automated classifier for loan applications. One way to make the system more ethical, that is less descriminating based on certain features like race or gender, is to often lower the th…

How would you do that without including a variable that raises a flag with the regulators? There are ways to improve access to credit for marginalized classes but this is generally done by adding variables that are independent of those related to protected classes.

Re: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

#18

Post by behnamoh »

curiousgal wrote: post #11
whymauri wrote: post #6

>This is the belief that A.I. codes are recipes for automating ethics itself; and that once a broad consensus around such codes has been achieved, the problem of determining an ethically positive future direction for computer code will have begun to be solved. I can think of literally nobody who believes this. I don't think anyone working in ethical AI would pretend that ethics can be "solved."

There always seems to be a disconnect between tech philosophers and the technology they write about. Maybe they should try to actually work on 'AI' before preaching about it. To confirm your point a simple example is when working on an automated classifier for loan applications. One way to make the system more ethical, that is less descriminating based on certain features like race or gender, is to often lower the th…

A few points:

1. I mean I'm all in favor of ethics, but it's like saying "I believe in God/god". Everyone seems to have their own interpretation of it. When people are talking about ethics/God/etc., how can they be sure that they're talking about the same thing? Centuries of debating over what is "ethical" has got us no where. Kant got close, but then there are caveats to his definition of ethics, too.

2. Who says AI should behave according to "our" ethics (whatever those are)? Sooner or later, with the emergence of ASI (artificial super intelligence) we'll have to accept the superior form of consciousness the ASI is. Expecting it to behave according to our rules is like monkeys asking us not to take away all the bananas because for them, it's unethical.

3. Even without AI, people have all sorts of biases and prejudices against certain ethnicities/races/colors/etc. You're not happy with the results that AI provides? Fine, hire some people instead and see where that leads you. The only thing you lose is the higher performance of AI.

4. Expecting AI systems to have no bias (while employees replaced by the AI certainly were prone to bias) is equivalent to expecting technology to change our world for the better. That doesn't always happen. You think smartphones are necessarily a good thing? Think about where they produce those gadgets and how they treat the workers.

5. At the end of the day, companies will stick with whatever "works" for them, regardless of what label we put on it (good/bad/ethical/fair/...). If it adds value, then most of the time it's enough. If being ethical (according to some definition) doesn't bring in more cash, companies are unlikely to invest in it. At least, with explainable AI, there is benefits for the firm to improve the accuracy of the AI in the long term. But pushing companies to adopt some ethical/unbiased/fair AI that doesn't add value for them is itself unethical (in my book).

Re: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

#19

Post by RobPfeifer »

cmendel wrote: post #15
msla wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One way to make the system more ethical, that is less descriminating based on certain features like race or gender, is to often lower the threshold of acceptance for the marginalized classes and raise it for the other ones. Or don't input those values at all. Is it even legal for a human to take those things into consideration? Regardless, the AI morally shouldn't, so there's no reason for the data to even be in th…

Right; however, the problem is that ML is generally pretty good at finding underlying patterns in data, so even if you make an algorithm race-blind it can still construct a dummy variable that is effectively race. Unfortunately, it does this by codifying pre-existant social outcomes which are often not free of bias.

This is why disparate impact backtesting and go-forward monitoring should be done on all credit model releases

Re: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Ethical A.I.’

#20

Post by joe_the_user »

whymauri wrote: post #6

>This is the belief that A.I. codes are recipes for automating ethics itself; and that once a broad consensus around such codes has been achieved, the problem of determining an ethically positive future direction for computer code will have begun to be solved. I can think of literally nobody who believes this. I don't think anyone working in ethical AI would pretend that ethics can be "solved."

No one would say that they believe in automating ethics if you pin them down and ask them honestly. But lots of institutional speak still talks as that's the goal. Some portion of Nick Bostrom's book effectively argues for something like that, for example.
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