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Technology’s Impact on Morality

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Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#11

Post by gadders »

gaoshan wrote: post #9
dsign wrote: post #6

> Can technology affect human morality? This is a bad question to start the article, because the average Joe needs only two seconds to answer it in the affirmative. A society with plenty of material wealth facilitated by technology (electronics, financials, corporate law, patents, accepted practices, etc.) will consider amoral to feed a dog anything other than dog-food, while that would be a non-issue in a country wh…

Facebook is prominent, is tech and can impact morality. Exactly what the author is claiming. You are saying that it's "...obviously the most important piece of technology..." but the author does not make that claim. If you aren't familiar with a straw-man argument your last sentence is a textbook example.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram think that they are the arbiters of morality.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#12

Post by krageon »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #5

I'm hoping someone who's actually studied philosophy can weigh in on this: I notice that almost all debates on these topics skip over the question of what moral framework will underpin the discussion. It seems to me that a lot rides on that, for several reasons: - There's a real chance that the participants don't actually agree on the unstated framework, and - It makes it hard to actually argue from shared premises t…

> Am I missing something?

No. A lot of people that write about these subjects assume that everyone that reads what they say has the same moral framework as them. It is implicit, as you say. Not defining that framework explicitly means you won't get anywhere with a discussion, which is ironic because if you try to do so in a discussion folks will tell you that won't get you anywhere :)

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#13

Post by krageon »

k__ wrote: post #8
grobclaw wrote: post #3

I recently had a discussion on AI and morality with a philosophy PhD candidate (who publishes on ethics and human rights. His publications do not concern AI though). Specifically, we discussed whether it was OK to allow self-driving cars, despite not having a solution to moral questions such as "given the choice, should you run over 2.3 grandmas aged 71.2 or 1.7 kids aged 11.3?", and whether it was realistic that soc…

There are humans driving cars right now. How do they solve the problem? My guess is, they randomly chose who to run over in the heat of the moment. Why isn't that a viable solution? If AI drivers generally have less accidents and in the few cases left behave like humans, wouldn't that be a win?

It won't be random, it will be based on what they feel is best. It's immaterial in this case, because people will blame the AI as a whole when someone dies (even if a death was unavoidable). This is not an option with you the driver, because banning people from driving means nobody can drive a car at all. So the responsibility is shifted towards smaller details, so folks can feel safe in the knowledge that they may drive and they just have to do "nothing wrong". Even if that wrong is ill-defined and some situations have only "wrong" solutions.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#15

Post by lleb97a »

mihaic wrote: post #10
CoastalCoder wrote: post #5

I'm hoping someone who's actually studied philosophy can weigh in on this: I notice that almost all debates on these topics skip over the question of what moral framework will underpin the discussion. It seems to me that a lot rides on that, for several reasons: - There's a real chance that the participants don't actually agree on the unstated framework, and - It makes it hard to actually argue from shared premises t…

These contradictory discussions have always been out in the open, as otherwise the course of action for society would be clear and just need execution. With people speaking past one another, I don't think it's been as dysfunctional as it is right now. It obviously correlates with widespread internet access, but the addresable cause is probably more complex. One thing that happened before though was that future genera…

> ...we can't build anything on bullshiting.

I completely agree. However, I feel many of the problems we face as a society is because far too much has already been built on it. It was once strategically placed where necessary to maintain operations. Now it's just an industry all to itself.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#16

Post by grobclaw »

k__ wrote: post #8
grobclaw wrote: post #3

I recently had a discussion on AI and morality with a philosophy PhD candidate (who publishes on ethics and human rights. His publications do not concern AI though). Specifically, we discussed whether it was OK to allow self-driving cars, despite not having a solution to moral questions such as "given the choice, should you run over 2.3 grandmas aged 71.2 or 1.7 kids aged 11.3?", and whether it was realistic that soc…

There are humans driving cars right now. How do they solve the problem? My guess is, they randomly chose who to run over in the heat of the moment. Why isn't that a viable solution? If AI drivers generally have less accidents and in the few cases left behave like humans, wouldn't that be a win?

> If AI drivers generally have less accidents and in the few cases left behave like humans, wouldn't that be a win?

Yes. I think that's a big part of why it's not necessary to "completely, once and for all solve" ethical problems to automate things that might run into them. One could easily argue (and people of course have) that it's also immoral not to take measures that will reduce accidents, which I'm quite sure will happen with AI drivers in the not too distant future.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#17

Post by [deleted] »

mihaic wrote: post #10
CoastalCoder wrote: post #5

I'm hoping someone who's actually studied philosophy can weigh in on this: I notice that almost all debates on these topics skip over the question of what moral framework will underpin the discussion. It seems to me that a lot rides on that, for several reasons: - There's a real chance that the participants don't actually agree on the unstated framework, and - It makes it hard to actually argue from shared premises t…

These contradictory discussions have always been out in the open, as otherwise the course of action for society would be clear and just need execution. With people speaking past one another, I don't think it's been as dysfunctional as it is right now. It obviously correlates with widespread internet access, but the addresable cause is probably more complex. One thing that happened before though was that future genera…

[deleted]

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#18

Post by bckr »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #5

I'm hoping someone who's actually studied philosophy can weigh in on this: I notice that almost all debates on these topics skip over the question of what moral framework will underpin the discussion. It seems to me that a lot rides on that, for several reasons: - There's a real chance that the participants don't actually agree on the unstated framework, and - It makes it hard to actually argue from shared premises t…

I agree, and I particularly wish that people would use "ethics" instead of "morals" more frequently.

My understanding is that ethics are how we treat other beings, and morals are rules we follow (think "moralizing").

I'm much more interested in the former.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#19

Post by yifanl »

k__ wrote: post #8
grobclaw wrote: post #3

I recently had a discussion on AI and morality with a philosophy PhD candidate (who publishes on ethics and human rights. His publications do not concern AI though). Specifically, we discussed whether it was OK to allow self-driving cars, despite not having a solution to moral questions such as "given the choice, should you run over 2.3 grandmas aged 71.2 or 1.7 kids aged 11.3?", and whether it was realistic that soc…

There are humans driving cars right now. How do they solve the problem? My guess is, they randomly chose who to run over in the heat of the moment. Why isn't that a viable solution? If AI drivers generally have less accidents and in the few cases left behave like humans, wouldn't that be a win?

Because codifying any behaviour is explicitly justifying any behaviour, and few engineers want to be responsible for signing off on the feature to run over Grandma.

A workaround thus far has been to abstract the problem into small enough pieces that ARE palatable to sign off on, as your comment shows. "Minimize the number of Grandmas run over" is a different framing than "Should we run over Grandma?".

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#20

Post by grobclaw »

travisgriggs wrote: post #4
grobclaw wrote: post #3

I recently had a discussion on AI and morality with a philosophy PhD candidate (who publishes on ethics and human rights. His publications do not concern AI though). Specifically, we discussed whether it was OK to allow self-driving cars, despite not having a solution to moral questions such as "given the choice, should you run over 2.3 grandmas aged 71.2 or 1.7 kids aged 11.3?", and whether it was realistic that soc…

> I am quite sad that so many philosophers and members of the public seem reluctant to accept this challenge at overhauling the millenia old stagnated academic debates. Many philosophers and public members are sad that you insist on ignoring their input and are going to charge ahead long term consequences be damned. (I’m not taking sides here) > If they don't participate, engineers will "solve" these problems themsel…

> Many philosophers and public members are sad that you insist on ignoring their input

On the contrary, I strongly encourage them to give input, and I criticise those who would rather give up, dismiss the questions as impossible to solve, and lament how technology has been destroying society for the last 2000 years, while self-driving cars still start being used leading to suffering that could have been prevented by thinking about things more and seeing them from more points of view.

Which inputs by philosophers or the public are being ignored?

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