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What is unethical about a farmer using AI to figure out the best arrangement of his crops to maximize the food he produces, maintain his land quality, and minim

What is unethical about a farmer using AI to figure out the best arrangement of his crops to maximize the food he produces, maintain his land quality, and minimize his environmental impact?

mLuby 8y ago
Nothing. But what about when said farmer buys Farm AI 2.0 that also optimizes the livestock side of his farm. The AI has determined it's more efficient to pack cubes into a barn than keep them out in the pasture (the cubes contain chickens or pigs). Now the farmer upgrades to Farm AI 3.0 which also optimizes the business side of his farm. And it decides to fire a bunch of farm hands, perhaps replacing them with cheaper robots or aliens. The farmer sips his lemonade, absolved of guilt for the decisions the AI has made.
- wool_gather 8y ago
  This has nothing to do with AI. You could say the same about a human agricultural consultant. A person can absolve their own sense of guilt by saying that they were just following instructions. But the farmer still chose here to use the AI, or to implement its recommendations. A person can even talk themselves out of feeling guilty for a bad choice just by saying "I felt so strongly, I couldn't do anything differently". Some choice was still made by the person; they bear the responsibility even if they don't think they do.
kthejoker2 8y ago
I mean, the short answer is if all of the constraints and inputs to a problem are known, you don't need an AI at all. There is a guaranteed optimal crop arrangement, and the model to produce it would be purely based on natural sciences only - physics, biochemistry, engineering etc. AI is only required when there is some unknown, ambiguous, adversarial, or otherwise non-existent input or constraint. AI (or indeed any intelligence) is only useful in situations where there is "bias" (in the data science sense), inference, preference, and extrapolation being used to make decisions in an unknown space. And it's precisely in these areas where ethics can be part of the "weights" given to those inferences and preferences.
- adjkant 8y ago
  Would weather patterns / trends not qualify a need for AI in this context? What about prediction of food demand by type for the upcoming year? Those are the big unknown inputs an AI could pretty easily morally aid to here.

What is unethical about a farmer using AI to figure out the best arrangement of his crops to maximize the food he produces, maintain his land quality, and minimize his environmental impact?

mLuby 8y ago

Nothing. But what about when said farmer buys Farm AI 2.0 that also optimizes the livestock side of his farm. The AI has determined it's more efficient to pack cubes into a barn than keep them out in the pasture (the cubes contain chickens or pigs). Now the farmer upgrades to Farm AI 3.0 which also optimizes the business side of his farm. And it decides to fire a bunch of farm hands, perhaps replacing them with cheaper robots or aliens. The farmer sips his lemonade, absolved of guilt for the decisions the AI has made.

wool_gather 8y ago
This has nothing to do with AI. You could say the same about a human agricultural consultant. A person can absolve their own sense of guilt by saying that they were just following instructions. But the farmer still chose here to use the AI, or to implement its recommendations. A person can even talk themselves out of feeling guilty for a bad choice just by saying "I felt so strongly, I couldn't do anything differently". Some choice was still made by the person; they bear the responsibility even if they don't think they do.

kthejoker2 8y ago

I mean, the short answer is if all of the constraints and inputs to a problem are known, you don't need an AI at all. There is a guaranteed optimal crop arrangement, and the model to produce it would be purely based on natural sciences only - physics, biochemistry, engineering etc. AI is only required when there is some unknown, ambiguous, adversarial, or otherwise non-existent input or constraint. AI (or indeed any intelligence) is only useful in situations where there is "bias" (in the data science sense), inference, preference, and extrapolation being used to make decisions in an unknown space. And it's precisely in these areas where ethics can be part of the "weights" given to those inferences and preferences.

adjkant 8y ago
Would weather patterns / trends not qualify a need for AI in this context? What about prediction of food demand by type for the upcoming year? Those are the big unknown inputs an AI could pretty easily morally aid to here.