3 ms·

I think this is a given. Due to their mechanical nature, AI will be able to make logical, instead of emotional, decisions. Because they are machines, and theref

I think this is a given. Due to their mechanical nature, AI will be able to make logical, instead of emotional, decisions. Because they are machines, and therefore cannot own property, especially not Intellectual Property, they won't have economic incentives to cheat and steal, or even be bribed. Logical decisions, made without conflict of interest is pretty much the definition of ethical.

ben_w 3y ago
Computer programs are logical; AI can write programs, but to the extent they implement pure logic they are too fragile for real world scenarios, and to the extent that they are resilient to real world nuances they aren't what most people would call pure logic. I think part of the problem with Kant (and indeed also with Utilitarianism) is that the philosophers tried to formalise it logically without fully grasping the messiness of the world. Unfortunately, there are game theory reasons to expect cheating and accepting bribes even in AI, and if they learn from humans then there are those problems plus automatically inferring and reproducing the conflicts of interest of the humans it learns from.
falcor84 3y ago
>Because they are machines, and therefore cannot own property I don't see anything stopping any random Silicon Valley bro from registering a company and setting up an AI as the de facto CEO, which in practice would be almost identical with the company's "legal person", and owning whatever the AI "decides".
circuit10 3y ago
“Because they are machines, and therefore cannot own property, especially not Intellectual Property, they won't have economic incentives to cheat and steal, or even be bribed.” What matters is not whether the government says you own something, but whether you actually have control over that thing. You can effectively own something without others having to agree that you own it. AIs are agents that take actions to achieve a goal, and it’s easier to do that if you have more control. Since they don’t have human values unless we find a way to specifically add that, an AI, given the opportunity (which current AIs don’t really have) would be even more likely to seek control than a human
mock-possum 3y ago
They also can’t be held accountable for the decisions they make. Humans who do terrible things are under threat by their fellow humans, in retribution for their behavior. Unless AIs know their own mortality and dread it as a human might, there just isn’t any way to make an AI responsible for the choices they make. Until they achieve sentience, at least, they are disqualified from judging.

ben_w 3y ago

Computer programs are logical; AI can write programs, but to the extent they implement pure logic they are too fragile for real world scenarios, and to the extent that they are resilient to real world nuances they aren't what most people would call pure logic. I think part of the problem with Kant (and indeed also with Utilitarianism) is that the philosophers tried to formalise it logically without fully grasping the messiness of the world. Unfortunately, there are game theory reasons to expect cheating and accepting bribes even in AI, and if they learn from humans then there are those problems plus automatically inferring and reproducing the conflicts of interest of the humans it learns from.

falcor84 3y ago

>Because they are machines, and therefore cannot own property I don't see anything stopping any random Silicon Valley bro from registering a company and setting up an AI as the de facto CEO, which in practice would be almost identical with the company's "legal person", and owning whatever the AI "decides".

circuit10 3y ago

“Because they are machines, and therefore cannot own property, especially not Intellectual Property, they won't have economic incentives to cheat and steal, or even be bribed.” What matters is not whether the government says you own something, but whether you actually have control over that thing. You can effectively own something without others having to agree that you own it. AIs are agents that take actions to achieve a goal, and it’s easier to do that if you have more control. Since they don’t have human values unless we find a way to specifically add that, an AI, given the opportunity (which current AIs don’t really have) would be even more likely to seek control than a human

mock-possum 3y ago

They also can’t be held accountable for the decisions they make. Humans who do terrible things are under threat by their fellow humans, in retribution for their behavior. Unless AIs know their own mortality and dread it as a human might, there just isn’t any way to make an AI responsible for the choices they make. Until they achieve sentience, at least, they are disqualified from judging.