Announcements

1
Announcements

• Research Paper due today, November 20
• Homework 8 due Thursday, November 29
• Current Events
• Mike - now
• Presentations
• Tuesday (11/27) - Andrew, Chelsea, Kay, Luke
• Thursday (11/29) - Beth, Jeff, Joey, Kevin
• Tuesday (12/4) - Autumn, Christian, Mike
• Final Project due Thursday, December 6

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Ethics in AI

• Lecture 16

3
According to the United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe's World Robotics Survey, in
2002 the number of domestic and service robots
more than tripled, nearly outstripping their
industrial counterparts. ... So what exactly is
being done to protect us from these mechanical
menaces? 'Not enough,' says Blay Whitby, an
artificial-intelligence expert at the University
of Sussex in England. ... Robot safety is likely
to surface in the civil courts as a matter of
product liability. 'When the first robot
carpet-sweeper sucks up a baby, who will be to
blame?' asks John Hallam, a professor at the
University of Southern Denmark in Odense. If a
robot is autonomous and capable of learning, can
its designer be held responsible for all its
actions? Today the answer to these questions is
generally 'yes'. But as robots grow in complexity
it will become a lot less clear cut, he says."
4
Intelligent Highway
California is working on an intelligent highway
system that would allow computer-controlled
automobiles to travel faster and closer together
on freeways than todays human-controlled cars.
What kinds of safety devices would have to be in
such a system in order for you to feel
comfortable using an intelligent highway?
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What is the best course of action?
A start-up company has been developing an
exciting new product for handheld computers that
will revolutionize the way nurses keep track of
their hospitalized patients. The device will
save nurses a great deal of time doing routine
paperwork, reduce their stress levels, and enable
them to spend more time with their
patients. Medicks sales force has led hospital
administrators to believe the product will be
available new week as originally scheduled.
Unfortunately, the package still contains quite a
few bugs. All of the known bugs appear to be
minor, but some of the planned tests have not yet
been performed. Because of the fierce competition
in the medical software industry, it is critical
that this company be first to market. It appears
a well established company will release a similar
product in a few weeks. If its product appears
first, Medick will probably go out of business.
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Ethical Theories

• Allows proponents to
• examine moral problems
• reach conclusions
• defend conclusions
• Examples

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Two perspectives

• Relativism
• No universal moral norms of right and wrong
• Different groups with opposite views can both be
  right

• Objectivism
• Morality has an existence outside human mind
• Ethical decision-making is a rational process
• People can discover objective moral principles
  with the use of logical reasoning

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Kantianism

• Categorical Imperative
• Act only from moral rules that can at the same
  time be universal moral laws
• Act so that you always treat both yourself and
  other people as ends in themselves, and never
  only as means to an end
• Focus on what ought to do - dutifulness
• Do what is always good without qualification
• Good will is the only thing that is universally
  good

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Act Utilitarianism

• An action is right (or wrong) to the extent that
  it increases (or decreases) the total happiness
  of affected parties
• Happiness advantage, benefit, good, or pleasure
• Focus on consequence of actions
• No such thing as good or bad motives

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Rule Utilitarianism

• One ought to adopt those moral rules which, if
  followed by everyone, will lead to the greatest
  increase in total happiness
• Apply Principle of Utility to rules rather than
  actions
• Rules should be followed without exception

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Social Contract Theory

• Morality consists in the set of rules, governing
  how people are to treat one another, that
  rational people will agree to accept, for their
  mutual benefit, on the condition that others
  follow those rules as well
• By living in a civil society, a persons actions
  have a moral quality
• Close correspondence to rights and duties
• Right to life others have duty not to kill you

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Technology is heading here the singularity. It
will predictably get to the point of making
artificial intelligence. The mere fact that you
cannot predict exactly when it will happen down
to the day is no excuse for closing your eyes and
refusing to think about it. Eliezer
Yudkowsky "The Singularity Summit AI and the
Future of Humanity September 8, 2007
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Question

• If you could have a robot that would do any task
  you like, a companion to do all the work that you
  prefer not to, would you? And if so, how do you
  think this might affect you as a person?
• Responses

14
Question

• Are there any kind of robots that shouldn't be
  created? Or that you wouldn't want to see
  created? Why?
• Responses

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Ethical Robots

• Utilitarian Machine
• Perform computation on possible actions and
  choose the action that maximizes the greatest
  good
• Kantian Machine
• Map action plans into categories--forbidden,
  permissible, obligatory--by a simple consistency
  test on the plans
• For every maxim m, a machine could tell whether
  it is an element of F (forbidden maxims)
• What kind of machine should we create?