Machine Ethics

Machine Ethics

Language: English

Pages: 548

ISBN: 0521112354

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


The new field of machine ethics is concerned with giving machines ethical principles, or a procedure for discovering a way to resolve the ethical dilemmas they might encounter, enabling them to function in an ethically responsible manner through their own ethical decision making. Developing ethics for machines, in contrast to developing ethics for human beings who use machines, is by its nature an interdisciplinary endeavor. The essays in this volume represent the first steps by philosophers and artificial intelligence researchers toward explaining why it is necessary to add an ethical dimension to machines that function autonomously, what is required in order to add this dimension, philosophical and practical challenges to the machine ethics project, various approaches that could be considered in attempting to add an ethical dimension to machines, work that has been done to date in implementing these approaches, and visions of the future of machine ethics research.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

consciousness acquired new immediacy. Computationally rich software and, more recently, robots have challenged our values and caused us to ask new questions about ourselves (Turkle, 2005 [1984]). Are there some tasks, such as providing care and companionship, that only befit living creatures? Can a human being and a robot ever be said to perform the same task? In particular, how shall we assign value to what we have traditionally called relational authenticity? In their review of psychological

between these two responses reveals a shift from projection onto an object to engagement with a subject. 68 Turkle Engagement with a subject In the 1980s, debates in artificial intelligence centered on whether machines could be intelligent. These debates were about the objects themselves, what they could and could not do and what they could and could not be (Searle, 1980; Dreyfus, 1986; Winograd, 1986). The questions raised by relational artifacts are not so much about the machines’

the distant future, the difference between human beings and robots will seem purely philosophical. A simulation of the quality of Rachael in Blade Runner could inspire love on a par with what we feel toward people. In thinking about the meaning of love, however, we need to know not only what the people are feeling but what the robots are feeling. We are easily seduced; we easily forget what the robots are; we easily forget what we have made. As I was writing this paper, I discussed it with a

“progress” (see the discussion of the ecocentric approach later for more on this theme). Also, it does rest very heavily on the presumption that all the relevant aspects of human mentality are explicable in informational terms and can be transferred without remainder or degradation to post-biotic processing platforms. A very bright übermind that is unfeeling, aesthetically dull, and creatively shackled does not seem to be a particularly worthy successor to human civilization.13 Biocentrism This

continue to practice, a degree of moral authoritarianism in which this passive behavior is the norm. Rather more important as a counter-argument is the problem of responsibility. The introduction of moral advice-giving systems may enable people to “hide behind the machine” in various unethical ways. That this sort of behavior can and does happen is undisputed. It also seems highly likely that the existence of moral advice-giving systems will open the door to a good deal more of it. This

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