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Exactly. I was working on some machine learning code when I realized that there were implicit moral choices in all machine learning results. Every dataset has i

Exactly. I was working on some machine learning code when I realized that there were implicit moral choices in all machine learning results. Every dataset has implicitly made choices about data to include or not include. Every "weighing" algorithm, even if emergent, is choosing "values" to weigh or not weigh. Now I see data in a whole new way - and find that I can easily dismiss most conclusions, since they represent value systems which are very distant from mine. (Most often, they represent a value system based on profit - effectively keeping others down rather than lifting others up. How many people even noticed that costs were a major consideration of the article? We are so accustomed to our value system of profit over people that we fail to look at the system as a whole - and consider the incredible wealth of our society and wider impacts of actions.)

bitL 8y ago
Most people don't get it as they don't understand reason behind their "reasoning" - usually driven by feelings, instincts (biology) and default modes they learned from their parents, friends or at school. So implicit choices made for them already ("common sense") cover the reasons about what really drives them and these are completely out of their radar, but we have to cope with them when we want to get anywhere near automated intelligence and morality.
minitel 8y ago
> Most often, they represent a value system based on profit - effectively keeping others down rather than lifting others up. I don't see how that follows at all. Profit motives have increased standards of living substantially across the board. In systems where wealth isn't generated at a rate fast enough to keep up with population growth zero sum games are a good approximation, but that hasn't been the case with capitalism so far.... (On a side note, I think vague and slightly negative headlines like this act like a canvas for us to paint our own ideological biases and anxieties on.)
Retra 8y ago
This is very easy to see when you consider morality to be (perhaps by definition) any process which compares competing possibilities and labels some superior to others. There is an implied morality acting under any goal, because one always considers the states that achieve the goal superior to ones that do not. With humans, we can have extremely complex goals, which leave room for our morality to shift around as the context changes in subtle ways (to make exceptions to rules, for instance.) Machines tend to have very simple goals by comparison. It makes it difficult to encode any potential exceptions to the rules.
closeparen 8y ago
Resources are not infinite. Better to have a careful allocation through serious consideration of cost than to let the chips fall where they may.

bitL 8y ago

Most people don't get it as they don't understand reason behind their "reasoning" - usually driven by feelings, instincts (biology) and default modes they learned from their parents, friends or at school. So implicit choices made for them already ("common sense") cover the reasons about what really drives them and these are completely out of their radar, but we have to cope with them when we want to get anywhere near automated intelligence and morality.

minitel 8y ago

> Most often, they represent a value system based on profit - effectively keeping others down rather than lifting others up. I don't see how that follows at all. Profit motives have increased standards of living substantially across the board. In systems where wealth isn't generated at a rate fast enough to keep up with population growth zero sum games are a good approximation, but that hasn't been the case with capitalism so far.... (On a side note, I think vague and slightly negative headlines like this act like a canvas for us to paint our own ideological biases and anxieties on.)

Retra 8y ago

This is very easy to see when you consider morality to be (perhaps by definition) any process which compares competing possibilities and labels some superior to others. There is an implied morality acting under any goal, because one always considers the states that achieve the goal superior to ones that do not. With humans, we can have extremely complex goals, which leave room for our morality to shift around as the context changes in subtle ways (to make exceptions to rules, for instance.) Machines tend to have very simple goals by comparison. It makes it difficult to encode any potential exceptions to the rules.

closeparen 8y ago

Resources are not infinite. Better to have a careful allocation through serious consideration of cost than to let the chips fall where they may.