Very interesting read, but I strongly disagree with it. I could mention several technical issues, but I do not think it would lead do a fruitful discussion. In

Very interesting read, but I strongly disagree with it. I could mention several technical issues, but I do not think it would lead do a fruitful discussion. Instead, think about this: why would people not behaving ethically? The point of the essay seems to be that they are either not aware of what is the best thing to do, or what the consequences of certain actions would be. I would argue that no, (most) people do know, but for some reason would still behave unethically. Who needs a reminder that driving while drunk puts lives in danger? Nobody. It is well known that more elaborate/advanced ethical reasoning does not lead to more ethical behavior. And most ethical dilemmas are not that simple, consider: > If the output of the computer ever contradicts with the human’s own intuitions, the human would be provided with an example of how and why the moral framework they have chosen does not match up with what they consider to be moral. A human could as well come up with several arguments for why their intuition is better than the computer's advice. Because that's how ethics is, there is not a single right answer, there are many good possibilities and many bad ones. Humans do not need help in identifying the bad ones, and only an oracle can say which alternative is the "best". In fact, this seems to be the main purpose of such an ethical assistant, to "remove important epistemic limitations", i.e. predict the future. > Suppose every driver had access to a good estimate for how likely they were to be involved in a traffic accident, every time they decided to go out. This seems utterly impossible. Most accidents are caused by random events, and the only reasonable estimate for this probability is between zero and a number so tiny that it would not make any practical difference. TLDR: - I am not going to argue whether computers might be able to perform decent moral reasoning - But if they can, it cannot be much better than what humans can already do - And even if it was better, humans would likely not follow this advice - Simply because people sometimes do not want to behave rationally