Machine Ethics Symposium

The first industrial revolution was about augmenting muscle, that of human beings and animals. information revolution enabled us to augment our brains to deal with tasks that required intense concentration and focus. We are today approaching another revolution, an augmentation of the human heart and soul.

A review of the development of the field from Machine Ethics towards Value Alignment, and an exploration of the key concepts in this space.

An exporation of the fusion of Machine Ethics and (Crypto) Economics

Our culture promotes human control over the world and with machines we are expanding this control even more. Therefore, this seems to be a great time for re-evaluating our very approach to ethics. The question is whether we can really distinguish what is right and wrong and what happens if we teach the machines our way.

Cybersecurity research involves publishing papers about malicious exploits as much as publishing information on how to design tools to protect cyber-infrastructure. It is this information exchange between ethical hackers and security experts, which results in a well-balanced cyber-ecosystem. In the blooming domain of AI Safety Engineering, hundreds of papers have been published on different proposals geared at the creation of a safe machine, yet nothing, to our knowledge, has been published on how to design a malevolent machine. Availability of such information would be of great value particularly to computer scientists, mathematicians, and others who have an interest in AI safety, and who are attempting to avoid the spontaneous emergence or the deliberate creation of a dangerous AI, which can negatively affect human activities and in the worst case cause the complete obliteration of the human species.

What makes a machine ethical? When is it ethical, or unethical, to wait until an autonomous system is thoroughly trained and tested? A machine does not exist in a vacuum, it reflects society in a ‘socio-technical’ system. Governing for ethical machines requires careful balancing of risks and benefits, consideration of cultural differences in ‘risk appetite’ for innovation, and global and multi-stakeholder coordination. Furthermore, what is the role of the public? How about myths and narratives, which shape our values, norms, and trust in AI & robotics? This presentation will challenge your conception of ethical machines and their interaction with societies. It will raise key governance and policy challenges, and potential solutions, for ensuring the development of ethical machines.

We often think that technologies are merely neutral tools that help us accomplish our goals. Artificial intelligence continues this trend with its veneer of objectivity. But the way we design technologies can implicitly endorse some people’s moral priorities and undermine others’. And new technologies can interact with their social context in ways that are problematic, even exacerbating injustice. How can engineers and designers ensure that their creations become tools for good, rather than unwitting accomplices in harm?

“Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war”, Dr. Martin Luther King, 1967. Technology, accessibility and extremely cheap means of communication are increasingly enabling anyone to correct societal shortcomings, and promising progress moves humanity ever closer to realizing this vision of Dr. King’s – exactly because it has become easier to organize. From millions of sighted people helping visually impaired through apps to huge environmental efforts and political activism, individuals are organizing around local problems and global challenges that have previously been the territory of governments, or even completely out of reach.

In the few short decades since the advent of the Internet, we have done to our shared informational spaces what we have, since the Industrial Revolution, done to our forests, wetlands, and oceans: trashed and almost ruined it beyond repair. In the most riveting talk, one could imagine about Accounting, Skinner will discuss how our shared digital spaces became polluted, and how we can avoid the false dichotomy between fake news and censorship.

All the speakers on stage, discussion with the audience.

How to take the lessons of the day forward for our personal, professional, and societal futures.