The Ethics of AI and Its Effect On Us

post by cameroncowan · 2016-06-30T02:18:29.921Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 3 comments

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As many of you know, I've been pretty passionate about the melding to science through AI and philosophy. I've often asked questions on this forum in regards to thought, culture, and figuring out how to decide what an AI should do and how to keep and AI friendly. Fortunately, Slate.com has given me yet another opportunity to wax on the subject again (unpoetically). 

 

The article is here

One of the subjects of the article is an interesting case in what the future might hold for AI. 

Saqib Shaikh is a microsoft engineering working on one of their many AI projects. His claim to fame is his ability to use AI and machine learning to create smart glasses that he uses to compensate for his loss of sight when he was a child. Rather that improve his sight, the glasses give him sounds and he sees using the sound. From avoiding a skateboarder to finding his family, he gets about. It is an excellent example of how assistive technologies could become an important part of our lives. 

Ethical AI is a rather large topic and it is something that we will have to deal with sooner rather than later. The writer reminds us that we need greater collaboration on AI. This could be challenging thanks to nativism, Brexit, and overall national feelings that are sweeping the world. In the moment when we really need to come together on a technology that could solve a host of problems and help is make really great decisions, we're coming apart at every seam. But that's another story for another time.

We tend to have these pop culture notions about AI. As the article states we're somewhere between HAL and Siri in terms of our understanding and acceptance of AI in our lives. But the fact is that every items are getting smarter and getting infused with technology like never before giving these devices the chance to do even more for us than ever before.

Obviously, if we are creating something as smart and complex as we are we want some assurance that they will behave in a way that we find acceptable. In this way we refer to this boundary of behavior as an ethic and we hope for a friendly AI. The problem with ethics is that it is very subjective and requires judgement and discernment and is deeply cultural. What we think is right in the West might not be so true in parts of Asia where the civilization ethic is very different. How is AI going to respond to those nuances?

We can find some universal truths that most cultures can agree on:

We agree to not kill each other and punish those members who we catch doing it

We generally try to work cooperatively either directly or indirectly (directly in a hunting band, indirectly through economy of scale)

We aren't violent towards each other and we punish members who commit violence to another human or that humans items and home.

When it comes to social graces we won't have to worry about those with the AI we're likely to experience in our lifetimes. 

However, the ability to do "the right thing" will get complicated once we get past "perform this task, then that task, and then that task and report back to me." If an AI is doing legal discovery can they tell nuiance? Can they secure the data in such a way so as not to reveal any information to anyone else (computer or human) and in scenarios when certainly information cannot be used or used in certain contexts, is the AI smart enough to recognize those situations and act in an ethical manner of which we would approve? 

The article talks about trust and that we have to build trust into AI systems. This is where I think culture is vitally important. We humans are as much a product of our culture as anything else. How can we infuse human culture into AI?

 

To this the article says:

"A few people are taking the lead on this question. Cynthia Breazeal at the MIT Media Lab has devoted her life to exploring a more humanistic approach to artificial intelligence and robotics. She argues that technologists often ignore social and behavioral aspects of design. In a recent conversation, Cynthia said we are the most social and emotional of all the species, yet we spend little time thinking about empathy in the design of technology. She said, “After all, how we experience the world is through communications and collaboration. If we are interested in machines that work with us, then we can’t ignore the humanistic approach.”

 

The article has a few ideas about how to proceed with AI:

They include:

Transparency

Assistive

Efficient

Intelligent privacy

Accountability

Unbiased

 

I think this provides a helpful framework but as the article closes he brings up something that I think is vital and that is the transition from "labor saving and automated" to make and creation. Is it not better to keep 15 people employed with assistive AI than to displace those 15 workers with machines that simply do the job with minimal oversight? 

 

A few ideas:

Might creating meyers-briggs personalities for AI help with ethical decisions?

Might look at the Enneagram be helpful as well?

Can we control an AI by creating a system of motivations that causes it to generally work in an ethical way?

Can we remove excess desires so that the AI is motivated only to be helpful to humans and how do we create boundaries that stop and AI from causing harm of a violent or traumatizing nature? 

 

I hope this sparks interesting discussion! Let the discussion begin!

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