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This is unhelpful reductionism. Like science, it's an ongoing project to minimize harm in a very real way. No one is pretending that we are done or that forcing
by pengstrom 6y ago
This is unhelpful reductionism. Like science, it's an ongoing project to minimize harm in a very real way. No one is pretending that we are done or that forcing ideas o people is a good idea. The point is just to systematically think about the consequences of our actions. Ethics provide tools for this.
- qsort 6y ago> Like science, it's an ongoing project to minimize harm in a very real way. What would this "very real" way be? Different people have widely different objective functions they are trying to maximize. The expectation that we should always attempt to pursue cosmic justice is completely unrealistic. We already have a proper way of enforcing "very real" ways to curtail abuses, it's called passing laws. There probably is a place for serious, proper discussion of what the proper working ethics for a software engineer are, but it's nowhere near as preminent as the zeitgeist is suggesting.
- smnrchrds 6y ago> We already have a proper way of enforcing "very real" ways to curtail abuses, it's called passing laws. And how is it decided what should become illegal? Just passing laws banning unethical things? Now we are back to square one deciding what is and isn't ethical.
- konjin 6y agoThe ballot box.
- smnrchrds 6y agoBut who writes the words that go on the ballots? Ballots are not like Ouija boards. Someone has to make a proposal for others to vote on. The person who writes that will be an ethicist, if not by title, then by the fact that they wrote the text of a proposal to ban something unethical.
- bosswipe 6y agoOne of the points of corporate ethics is to avoid pissing off the public so much that laws get enacted to regulate you.
- pengstrom 6y agoWho's talking about cosmic justice? Don't be ridiculous. We can identify instances of harm and that's about it. Every system dealing in dichotomies (including binary) will eventually fail in reality, which always is more nuanced. Exactly how it fails depends on our knowledge, biases and our ability to account for them. The problem is that flawed, biased AI systems are presented as neutral and fair, when they can never be. Ethics is what you get when you genuinely care about other peoples reality, not just following the law.