The
ethics of artificial intelligence addresses a number of moral and legal issues which arise if researchers are able to build machines with intellectual capacities that rival human beings.
It considers the unexpected consequences, dangers and potential misuse of the technology. It also considers the ways in which
artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science which aims to create it. Textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents,"...
may be used to benefit humanity. These concerns are similar to those that arise for any sufficiently powerful technology and (for these issues) the ethics of artificial intelligence is a part of a larger discussion of the
ethics of technologyEthics of technology is a subfield of ethics addressing the ethical questions specific to the Technology Age. Some prominent works of philosopher Hans Jonas are devoted to ethics of technology. Technology itself is incapable of possessing moral or ethical qualities, since "technology" is merely...
.
The issue of
robot rights is unique to artificial intelligence. AI may have the ability to one day create sentient creatures—that is, creatures which feel pleasure and pain—which may therefore deserve the same rights as human beings.
Treating AIs ethically: robot rights
Robot rights are the moral obligations of society towards its machines, similar to
human rightsHuman rights refer to the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Examples of rights and freedoms which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the...
or
animal rightsAnimal rights, also referred to as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of humans...
. These may include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression and equality before the law.
The issue has been considered by the
Institute for the FutureThe Institute for the Future is a Palo Alto, California–based think tank established in 1968, as a spin-off from the RAND Corporation, to help organizations plan for the long-term future....
and by the
U.K.The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
Department of Trade and IndustryThe Department of Trade and Industry was a United Kingdom government department which was replaced with the announcement of the creation of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills on 28 June 2007.The department was...
.
A key issue is
sentienceSentience is the ability to feel or perceive subjectively. The term is used in philosophy as well as in science fiction and in the study of artificial intelligence...
, or the ability to feel pleasure and pain. For advocates of
animal rightsAnimal rights, also referred to as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of humans...
, sentience is the distinguishing feature that forces society to honor the rights of animals. Using an argument analogous to the one used by animal rights advocates, a computer program or robot that is able to feel pleasure and pain has rights. However, there is no universally accepted definition of sentience (or related aspects such as
consciousnessConsciousness is subjective experience or awareness or wakefulness or the executive control system of the mind. It is an umbrella term that may refer to a variety of mental phenomena...
) for machines.
Experts disagree whether specific and detailed laws will be required soon or safely in the distant future. Glenn McGee reports that sufficiently humanoid robots may appear by 2020.
Ray Kurzweil sets the date at 2029.
However, most scientists suppose that at least 50 years may have to pass before any sufficiently advanced system exists.
The rules for the 2003
Loebner PrizeThe Loebner Prize is an annual competition in artificial intelligence that awards prizes to the chatterbot considered by the judges to be the most human-like. The format of the competition is that of a standard Turing test. A human judge poses text questions to a computer program and a human being...
competition explicitly addressed the question of robot rights:
61. If, in any given year, a publicly available open source Entry entered by the University of Surrey or the Cambridge Center wins the Silver Medal or the Gold Medal, then the Medal and the Cash Award will be awarded to the body responsible the development of that Entry. If no such body can be identified, or if there is disagreement among two or more claimants, the Medal and the Cash Award will be held in trust until such time as the Entry may legally possess, either in the United States of America or in the venue of the contest, the Cash Award and Gold Medal in its own right.
Creating AIs that behave ethically
Autonomous robots and computer programs may be able to make choices and plan actions on their own, without the consent of their programmers or the instructions of their owners. As these machines become more autonomous, they begin to acquire the responsibility to behave ethically and their designers incur a responsibility to create machines that will behave ethically.
Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov , was an American author and professor of biochemistry, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books...
considered the issue in the 1950s in his book
I, RobotI, Robot is a collection of nine science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov, first published by Gnome Press in 1950 in an edition of 5,000 copies. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950. The stories are...
. At the insistence of his editor John W. Campbell Jr., he proposed the
Three Laws of RoboticsIn science fiction, the Three Laws of Robotics are a set of three rules written by Isaac Asimov, which almost all positronic robots appearing in his fiction must obey...
to govern artificial intelligent systems. Much of his work was then spent testing the boundaries of his three laws to see where they would break down, or where they would create paradoxical or unanticipated behavior. His work suggests that no set of fixed laws can sufficiently anticipate all possible circumstances.
In 2009, during an experiment at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of
LausanneLausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva , and facing Évian-les-Bains and with the Jura mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located some northeast of Geneva. It is the capital of the canton of Vaud and of the district of...
in
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
, robots that were programmed to cooperate with each other in searching out a beneficial resource and avoiding a poisonous one eventually learned to lie to each other in an attempt to hoard the beneficial resource.
Using AI technology ethically
AI is a powerful technology that can be used to nefarious ends.
The threat to privacy
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Soviet and Russian novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his writings he made the world aware of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system — particularly The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, his two...
's book
The First CircleThe First Circle is a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn released in 1968.The novel details the life of the occupants of a gulag prison camp located in the Moscow suburbs, the Marfino sharashka...
describes the use of
speech recognitionSpeech recognition converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to speech recognition where the recognition system is trained to a particular speaker - as is the case for most desktop recognition software, hence there is an aspect of speaker recognition,...
technology in the service of tyranny. If an AI program exists that can understand speech and
natural languageNatural language processing is a field of computer science and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages. Natural language generation systems convert information from computer databases into readable human language...
s (e.g.
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
), then, with adequate processing power it could theoretically listen to every phone conversation and read every email in the world, understand them and report back to the program's operators exactly what is said and exactly who is saying it. An AI program like this could assist fascist governments to efficiently suppress dissent and attack their enemies.
Unintended consequences
Several critics have argued that AI technology has the potential to disrupt existing society and introduce new dangers and malaise.
The threat to human dignity
Joseph Weizenbaumright|thumb|200px|Joseph Weizenbaum in Berlin, 2005Joseph Weizenbaum was a Jewish-American author and professor emeritus of computer science at MIT....
argued in 1976 that AI technology should not be used to replace people in positions that require respect and care, such as:
- A customer service representative, (AI technology is already used today for telephone-based interactive voice response
Interactive Voice Response product, interactive technology that allows a computer to detect voice and keypad inputs. IVR technology is used extensively in telecommunications, but is also being introduced into automobile systems for hands-free operation. Current deployment in automobiles revolves...
systems)
- A therapist, (as was seriously proposed by Kenneth Colby
Kenneth Mark Colby, M.D. was an American psychiatrist dedicated to the theory and application of computer science and artificial intelligence to psychiatry. Colby was a pioneer in the development of computer technology as a tool to try to understand cognitive functions and to assist both patients...
in the 1970s)
- A nursemaid for the elderly, (as was reported by Pamela McCorduck
Pamela McCorduck is the author of a number of books concerning the history and philosophical significance of artificial intelligence, the future of engineering and the role of women and technology. She is also the author of three novels. She is a contributor to Omni, New York Times, Daedalus, the...
in her book The Fifth Generation)
- A judge, or
- A police officer.
Weizenbaum explains that we require authentic feelings of empathy from people in these positions. If machines replace them, we will find ourselves alienated, devalued and frustrated. Artificial intelligence, if used in this way, represents a threat to human dignity. Weizenbuam argues that fact that we are entertaining the possibility of machines in these positions suggests that we have experienced an "atrophy of the human spirit that comes from thinking of ourselves as computers."
Pamela McCorduckPamela McCorduck is the author of a number of books concerning the history and philosophical significance of artificial intelligence, the future of engineering and the role of women and technology. She is also the author of three novels. She is a contributor to Omni, New York Times, Daedalus, the...
counters that, speaking for women and minorites "I'd rather take my chances with an impartial computer," pointing out that there are conditions where we would prefer to have automated judges and police that have no personal agenda at all. AI founder
John McCarthyJohn McCarthy , is an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist who received the Turing Award in 1971 for his major contributions to the field of Artificial Intelligence...
objects to the moralizing tone of Weizenbaum's critique. "When moralizing is both vehement and vague, it invites authoritarian abuse," he writes.
Implications for human society
In 2009, academics and technical experts attended a conference to discuss the potential impact of robots and computers and the impact of the hypothetical possibility that they could become self-sufficient and able to make their own decisions. They discussed the possibility and the extent to which computers and robots might be able to acquire any level of autonomy, and to what degree they could use such abilities to possibly pose any threat or hazard. They noted that some machines have acquired various forms of semi-autonomy, including being able to find power sources on their own and being able to independently choose targets to attack with weapons. They also noted that some computer viruses can evade elimination and have achieved "cockroach intelligence." They noted that self-awareness as depicted in science-fiction is probably unlikely, but that there were other potential hazards and pitfalls.
Some experts and academics have questioned the use of robots for military combat, especially when such robots are given some degree of autonomous functions. The US Navy has funded a report which indicates that as military robots become more complex, there should be greater attention to implications of their ability to make autonomous decisions.
The President of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence has commissioned a study to look at this issue. They point to programs like the
Language Acquisition DeviceThe Language Acquisition Device is a computer program developed by Lobal Technologies, a computer company in the United Kingdom, and scientists from King's College. It emulates the functions of the brain's frontal lobes where humans process language and emotion. Scientists hope this might enable...
which can emulate human interaction.
Vernor Vinge has suggested that a moment may come when some computers are smarter than humans. He calls this "
the SingularityTechnological singularity is a term used with varying meanings related to self-improving artificial intelligence, superintelligence, breakdowns in the predictability of the future, accelerating change of the exponential or superexponential/catastrophic sort, and more generic "big events" in...
." He suggests that it may be somewhat or possibly very dangerous for humans. This is discussed by a philosophy called
SingularitarianismSingularitarianism is a philosophy and social movement that is defined by the belief that a technological singularity — the creation of a superintelligence — is a likely possibility within the medium-term future, and that deliberate action ought to be taken to ensure that the technological...
.
Some have suggested a need to build "Friendly AI", meaning that the advances which are already occurring with AI should also include an effort to make AI intrinsically friendly and humane.
Robot ethics in fiction
The movie
The Thirteenth FloorThe Thirteenth Floor , directed by Josef Rusnak, is a science fiction film based upon Simulacron-3 , a novel by Daniel F. Galouye, and Welt am Draht , by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a German two-part television film. The featured players are Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Vincent...
suggests a future where simulated worlds with sentient inhabitants are created by computer game consoles for the purpose of entertainment. The movie
The MatrixThe Matrix is a science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
suggests a future where the dominant species on planet Earth are sentient machines and humanity is treated with utmost
SpeciesismSpeciesism is the assigning of different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was created by British psychologist Richard D. Ryder in 1973 to denote a prejudice against non-humans based on morally irrelevant physical differences...
. The short story
The Planck DiveLuminous is a collection of short science fiction stories by Greg Egan.Luminous contains the following short stories.*Chaff - An agent is sent to kill a geneticist who is working in a druglord controlled stronghold in the jungles of Colombia, and working on important brain altering...
suggest a future where humanity has turned itself into software that can be duplicated and optimized and the relevant distinction between types of software is sentient and non-sentient. The same idea can be found in the
Emergency Medical HologramIn the Star Trek fictional universe, the Emergency Medical Hologram or EMH is a holographic program intended to support and augment medical personnel aboard a Starfleet vessel or installation in case of emergency.- History :The EMH was introduced and is most commonly seen on the series Star...
of Starship Voyager, which is an apparently sentient copy of a reduced subset of the consciousness of its creator, Dr. Zimmerman, who, for the best motives, has created the system to give medical assistance in case of emergencies. The movies Bicentennial Man and
A.I.A.I. Artificial Intelligence, also known as Artificial Intelligence: A.I. or simply A.I., is a science fiction film directed, produced and co-written by Steven Spielberg. Based on Brian Aldiss's short story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, the film stars Haley Joel Osment, Frances O'Connor, Jude...
deal with the possibility of sentient robots that could love.
I, RobotI, Robot is a 2004 science fiction-action film. The film was directed by Alex Proyas and produced by John Davis, Topher Dow, Wyck Godfrey, Laurence Mark and Will Smith. The screenplay was penned by Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman and Hillary Seitz and is loosely based on Isaac Asimov's short-story...
explored some aspects of Asimov's three laws. All these scenarios try to foresee possibly unethical consequences of the creation of sentient computers.
Over time, debates have tended to focus less and less on
possibility and more on
desirability, as emphasized in the "Cosmist" and "Terran" debates initiated by
Hugo de GarisHugo de Garis is a researcher in the sub-field of artificial intelligence known as evolvable hardware. He became known in the 1990s for his research on the use of genetic algorithms to evolve neural networks using three dimensional cellular automata inside field programmable gate arrays...
and
Kevin WarwickKevin Warwick is a British scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom...
. A Cosmist, according to Hugo de Garis, is actually seeking to build more intelligent successors to the human species.
External links