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Technology’s Impact on Morality

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Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#21

Post by glitchc »

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?

Humans also directly suffer consequences for those actions. They show remorse and suffer emotionally attempting to grapple with the outcome of their choice. The legal system takes remorse and suffering into consideration, as it is designed to do.

Do self-driving engineers personally commit to be punished and suffer remorse for their algorithm’s choices? And before you say “it’s not fair, the CEO is at fault!” think about who’s writing the code. The CEO doesn’t make the self-driving car possible, the engineer does.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#22

Post by yboris »

bckr wrote: post #18
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.

If I'm not mistaken (based on a bunch of philosophy courses I took at Rutgers University a bit over a decade ago), philosophers use "morality" and "ethics" interchangeably - and both terms are, roughly speaking, systems that say what individuals ought to do in situations and in general (and these could be rule based, aka "deontology", or act based aka "act utilitarianism", or virtue based "virtue ethics", etc).

I'm unsure how regular people use "ethics" and "morals", so in any conversation I tend to clarify what I mean by the terms so as to avoid confusion.

My recommendation: utilitarianism is the best ethical framework for life - in every regard. It has a proven track record (advocating for abolition of slavery, women's rights, gay right, animal rights, etc -- all decades or even centuries before these became mainstream).

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#23

Post by brunes »

In my opinion, technology does not affect core morality, all it does is amplify the positive and negative.

The invention of the knife, of the bow & arrow, of gunpowder, of rockets. Each one of these pieces of technology amplified the ways humans can harm and kill each other, as well as created other technological use cases. Their creation did not create changes in morality.

Social media is a tool, no different from a bow & arrow. It can be used for many use cases. Some of them have negative effects. That does not make it moral or immoral.

Technology does not create nor affect morality, it is how the technology is used by individual users that does that.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#24

Post by Jtsummers »

robertlagrant wrote: post #2

This seems like a bad idea, mostly. I think there are ethical frameworks in which technologies should operate - just as a newspaper should not put out a full page advert calling for violence against a person or group - but "morality as a feature" sounds obviously dystopian. Once again someone is calling for power to be moved away from people and centralised. What's labelled "morality as a feature" could just be "de f…

Were you reading another article? The author of this one is not "calling for power to be moved away from people and centralised". Nothing like that argument at all appears in the article.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#25

Post by Nasrudith »

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…

You cannot teach children via hypocrisy. At best you teach them "it is only okay when adults do it". Their job is to observe and they will detect such insincerity.

Really indoctrination is the wrong way to think about it period. Children are not to be your puppets but your successors who will always diverge from you.

I am also of the opinion that 99% of the time "the collective" is used merely an excuse to manufacture consent by claiming to speak for all or represent their interests. Communists are especially infamous for this "listen to the working class but only if they agree with me" sleight of hand! I find doing away with the "collective" bullcrap and think in terms of individuals and "mirrored standards and impacts". You don't want "bad people" detained indefinitely without a trial because then there is nothing stopping it from applying to you. It is damn simple but people tend to fail that mirror test all the time.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#26

Post by Agamus »

yboris wrote: post #22
bckr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If I'm not mistaken (based on a bunch of philosophy courses I took at Rutgers University a bit over a decade ago), philosophers use "morality" and "ethics" interchangeably - and both terms are, roughly speaking, systems that say what individuals ought to do in situations and in general (and these could be rule based, aka "deontology", or act based aka "act utilitarianism", or virtue based "virtue ethics", etc). I'm u…

I studied some philosophy as an undergraduate. My understanding is this:

Ethical theory tries to answer the question, 'what should we do?' (e.g. death penalty or not?)

Moral theory tries to answer the question, 'why should we do that' (e.g. 'because god says so')

Metaethical theory tries to answer the question, 'what is the 'theory of knowledge' behind that moral theory?' (e.g. 'are there moral facts at all?')

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#27

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

brunes wrote: post #23

In my opinion, technology does not affect core morality, all it does is amplify the positive and negative. The invention of the knife, of the bow & arrow, of gunpowder, of rockets. Each one of these pieces of technology amplified the ways humans can harm and kill each other, as well as created other technological use cases. Their creation did not create changes in morality. Social media is a tool, no different from a…

Chemical weapons are bad. Covid vaccines are good. These things have some of the more drastic consequences. Yes, there are good and bad things. That doesn't mean the two sides are always in balance (or it wouldn't make sense to develop any technology).

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#28

Post by davidklemke »

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 had the same reservations about this as well and ended up stumbling on this article which helped clarify my thoughts on it a bit: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

Whilst not really settling the debate about which moral framework is used it does give a good lens by which to judge it, from the article:

There does not seem to be much reason to think that a single definition of morality will be applicable to all moral discussions. One reason for this is that “morality” seems to be used in two distinct broad senses: a descriptive sense and a normative sense. More particularly, the term “morality” can be used either

1.descriptively to refer to certain codes of conduct put forward by a society or a group (such as a religion), or accepted by an individual for her own behavior, or 2.normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational people.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#29

Post by fifyerc »

Jtsummers wrote: post #24
robertlagrant wrote: post #2

This seems like a bad idea, mostly. I think there are ethical frameworks in which technologies should operate - just as a newspaper should not put out a full page advert calling for violence against a person or group - but "morality as a feature" sounds obviously dystopian. Once again someone is calling for power to be moved away from people and centralised. What's labelled "morality as a feature" could just be "de f…

Were you reading another article? The author of this one is not "calling for power to be moved away from people and centralised". Nothing like that argument at all appears in the article.

They are you're just ignoring it. 'Morality' is always presented in a binary context of morale/immoral and many of the examples in the article fall into the same pattern. You don't need to advocate centralizing power when discussing moral frameworks because it's implied in the conversation that hypothetically power will be centralized around the 'moral' viewpoint. For the same reason all morals are inherently supremecist because if they weren't they wouldn't be labeled the moral course of action.

Re: Technology’s Impact on Morality

#30

Post by mihaic »

Nasrudith wrote: post #25
mihaic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You cannot teach children via hypocrisy. At best you teach them "it is only okay when adults do it". Their job is to observe and they will detect such insincerity. Really indoctrination is the wrong way to think about it period. Children are not to be your puppets but your successors who will always diverge from you. I am also of the opinion that 99% of the time "the collective" is used merely an excuse to manufactur…

Like the original comment, I feel like we're talking past one another. Of course I think we should strive to be what we teach our children.

Maybe you didn't like my use of "indoctrination", as you see it having a negative connotation. I meant to say that some thing need to be taught by repeated explanation and not by example alone -- mostly higher order concepts.

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