Introduction
Since human is entering a unique and intelligent era and intelligent society. Artificial intelligence is not a normal technology as before, but a revolutionary technology with broad application prospects in the world. According to Stahl, B.C. (Stahl, 2021) “AI is not an end in itself, but rather a promising means to increase human flourishing, thereby enhancing individual and societal well-being and the common good, as well as bringing progress and innovation.” But at the same time, artificial intelligence is also a technology that does not mature subversive and need to work more on it, thus its possible ethical problems are difficult to accurately predict. With the development of artificial intelligence, they are deconstructing the traditional human relations, and leading to various ethical conflicts and problems, which has aroused widespread concern and discussions in the society. In this blog I will first introduce the history of artificial intelligence, I will use different aspects of case study to discuss the moral problems in different fields caused by artificial intelligence. Finally, I will put forward some ways to solve the ethical problems as possible.
What is artificial intelligent?
What is artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is a new technical science that studies and develops theories, methods, technologies and so on, aims to shape or simulate human cognitive ability.
Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science. Since the mid- 2000s, AI has rapidly expanded as a field in academia and as an industry. (Crawford, 2021). Artificial intelligence systems can accomplish more and more tasks. They participate in industrial production, fly aircraft or UAVs, trade high-frequency stocks, and control people’s working and living environment. Sometimes the machine will do some hard, dirty, dangerous or unpleasant work; Sometimes they are just faster or more accurate than human physiological and cognitive abilities. It is hoped that the use of artificial intelligence system can make human hands and brain freely carry out more attractive, challenging and creative activities. This requires that the machine can complete its own tasks independently without long-term human control and supervision.
Artificial intelligence is a challenging science. People engaged in this work must understand computer knowledge, psychology and philosophy. It includes a wide range of science which is composed of different fields. Generally, a main goal of artificial intelligence research is to enable machines to do some complex tasks that usually require human, and reduce people’s burden.
1. Autonomous driving
Intelligent driving is the technology most expected by people now, because most car accidents are caused by drivers’ driving mistakes. Intelligent driving can be more “calm”, more “focused” and less tired than people, which may save many people’s lives; For the elderly and the disabled who are unable to drive, driverless can provide great convenience. Now this technology has been slowly popularized all over the world.
Retrieved from https://strangesounds.org/2018/03/first-autonomous-vehicle-death-self-driving-uber-car-kills-pedestrian-in-tempe-arizona.html
However, according to CNN new, the first involving the death of an autopilot car was around 10 p.m. on March 18, 2018, when a woman in Arizona was hit by an autopilot car and died after being taken to hospital. On November 7, 2019, US officials announced more details of the world’s first autonomous accident of an unmanned vehicle. 5.6 seconds before Uber’s driverless car accident, the vehicle had detected pedestrians, but the system mistakenly identified her as a car. The car’s automatic driving system classifies the woman into “other objects”. Since the AI thought she was an object and won’t interfere with traffic. After that, the classification of objects in the system became confused, constantly judging between “car” and “other objects”, wasting a lot of time. As a result, the vehicle failed to take action in time, and eventually led to the accident. And also, the emergency braking function of the vehicle was disabled at that time. Moreover, the Uber safety officer on the car was watching TV programs on his phone and missed his last chance to avoid the accident.
According to Ampe, the most important event of this kind is the question of liability. (Ampe, 2020) Because in the traffic accidents caused by intelligent driving, the only reason for imputation is the “right and wrong” of the result. There is neither the driver’s subjective intention nor the driver’s “fault” such as drunk driving, fatigue driving and emotional driving. Therefore, the object of moral and legal norms has become complex and difficult to determine. If there is a traffic accident in the driving of driverless car, resulting in a certain loss of life and property, who should bear the corresponding moral and legal responsibility – the designer, manufacturer, user or driverless car itself? This involves moral issues. Another question is what ethical principles should be based on to regulate intelligent driving?
Like a Trolley Problem, if a smart car full of people is about to hit a pedestrian, it can choose emergency braking, which may cause the car to overturn and hurt passengers; But if you don’t brake hard, you may knock down pedestrians. If the driver is a person, it all depends on the driver’s experience, especially the instinctive intuition or judgment at that time. However, when intelligent driving encounters this situation, it can only be calculated by algorithm, while the prior programming is subject to the dispute between utilitarianism and deontology, and there is no similar setting at all. (Ampe, 2020) It can only select similar cases from the large database for analogy which will lose humanity.
2. Humanoid robot
The development of humanoid intelligent robot is not only a key field of artificial intelligence, but also the most difficult and demanding field.
Due to the differences in body structure, lifestyle, cultural values and way of thinking, the relationship between humanoid intelligent robot and human will become a new problem. The mutual interests and emotional disputes will become more and more frequent, and it will be more and more difficult to solve within the framework of traditional ethics and social governance.
Retrieved from https://juiceonline.com/sophia-the-robots-hand-painted-self-portrait-was-sold-as-an-nft-for-around-rm2-8-million/
On October 25, 2017, Saudi Arabia awarded the humanoid robot Sophia developed by Hansen robotics as a citizen. The system is designed based on the sample of famous American actress Audrey Hepburn and is named Sophia. The identity breakthrough of humanoid intelligent robot and its actions beyond the existing limits are posing severe challenges to the traditional human relations, marriage and love concept, family structure and so on. As the first robot with traditional human citizenship, Sophia has received greater publicity. She seems to consciously use this unique position to emphasize certain topics, such as innovation or women’s rights. (SZENTGÁLI-TÓTH, n.d.) As a result, can Sophia really be regarded as a natural person in the real sense? The personal characteristics, mental ability and independent decision-making room of electronic humanoid robots are consciously determined in the current technological opportunities, mainly determined by their software and algorithms, and these software are mainly determined by the creators, which are often established to promote some interests of mankind. Moreover, when the appearance of humanoid robot can be customized, people choose the people around them or stars as the appearance of the robot. Does this violate the right of portrait? If the technology develops in the future, humanoid robots will probably become the hottest market. In every industry, there will be a place for humanoid robot. When the humanoid robot has made a breakthrough, it will have the sense of independence and human emotion and emotion. When they enter the family as nannies, pets, lovers, partners and even children, and become new members in people’s life and even in the family, will there be all kinds of feelings between people and intelligent robots over time?
Compared with human beings, artificial intelligence system is a more primitive and restricted moral subject. The closer the artificial intelligence system is to the complete moral subject, the more necessary the problem about their own moral status will become. If these systems have phenomenal consciousness, free will or the ability to reflect on moral thinking, are they still morally allowed to use these systems to serve people?
Retrieved from https://store.steampowered.com/app/1222140/Detroit_Become_Human/
Just like the 2018 interactive movie game Detroit: become human, this game deeply discusses how to deal with the relationship with humans and compete for the same power as humans in the near future when ‘Android’, that is, humanoid robots have self-awareness. Through different choices, the characters in the game may succeed in the revolution and make mankind recognize that they are also alive, powerful and free, or they are suppressed by mankind and finally thrown into the scrap yard. The plot of the game makes players think deeply about whether having a robot with self-awareness is a real human. In the game, we can see different perspectives between robots and humans, such as the robot “partner” customized by people. Such an anti-traditional marriage will subvert the existing family structure, whether it can be tolerated and understood by people, and whether it can be recognized by law. For example, some robots understand what love is, what is family affection, which like human beings They try to learn to love like humans.
When the Android revolution is successful, human beings recognize the rights of robots, just as the game said, “perhaps the time has come for us to consider the possibility that Android are a new form of intelligent life”. And when the Android revolution fails, there is also a saying “Android imitate life to perfection, but they’ll never be alive. They’re only an imitation. Nothing else.” These two different sentences also represent two different positions. Is the humanoid robot alive? Is it a real human? I think the development of humanoid robot is the most ethical issue in artificial intelligence.
How to solve ethical problems?
Although the current AI technology is still in a controllable stage, we also need to consider it according to the current development speed of human science and technology. In the face of unprecedented severe risks and challenges, we must be based on the major changes of the times and society, consider ethics and value factors as important influencing factors of artificial intelligence, and then make ethics and value principles become the internal dimensions restricting the development of artificial intelligence. In 2019, the EU released the ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI written by the EU senior expert group on artificial intelligence. This paper puts forward the framework of realizing the whole life cycle of trusted artificial intelligence, and expounds in detail the three basic elements of the “trusted AI whole life cycle framework”, the basic principles of trusted AI, the key requirements of evaluating trusted AI and its implementation.(Weiser,2019) Generally, In the use of artificial intelligence, “transparency” is the key to everything. When a company uses artificial intelligence technology, its users should have the right to know whether they are communicating with algorithms or real people. Not only the European Union has issued the guidelines for artificial intelligence, but other countries such as the United States, China and South Korea have also released the prospects and challenges of artificial intelligence.
Conclusion
In the rapid development of artificial intelligence, all kinds of new value contradictions and ethical conflicts continue to appear and attract people’s thinking. People need to work on effective ethical regulation on the design and application of artificial intelligence, which is not only the responsibility but also the necessity of this society. Although the ethical regulations of artificial intelligence must be a long and hard process, which needs us to think more and make intelligent creative efforts, I think there will be a good future in the end.
References:
- AMHarbinger. (2018). Detroit: Become Human – Best Ending – Everyone Survives, Successful Android Revolution. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDaVeXM-CsA
- Ampe, T. (2020, December 12). Autonomous Accidents: The Ethics of Self-Driving Car Crashes. Viterbi Conversations in Ethics. Retrieved from https://vce.usc.edu/semester/fall-2020/autonomous-accidents-the-ethics-of-self-driving-car-crashes/
- Crawford, & Kate. (2021). The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence (pp. 1–21). New Haven: Yale University Press. Retrieved from https://www-degruyter-com.ezproxy.library.sydney.edu.au/document/doi/10.12987/9780300252392/html
- GameRiot. (2018, June 7). Detroit Become Human – QUICKEST ENDING (Kamski Secret Ending). Www.youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvUFfpZ-Fw4
- McFarland, M. (2018, March 19). Uber pulls self-driving cars after first fatal crash of autonomous vehicle. CNNMoney. Retrieved from https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-autonomous-car-fatal-crash/index.html
- Stahl, B. C. (2021). Ethical Issues of AI. Artificial Intelligence for a Better Future, 35–53. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69978-9_4
- SZENTGÁLI-TÓTH, B. (n.d.). Robotic personhood and its potential impact to democracy ROBOTIC PERSONHOOD AND ITS POTENTIAL IMPACT TO DEMOCRACY Should artificial intelligence be citizens and vested with right to vote?
- Weiser, S. (2019, April 8). Requirements of Trustworthy AI. FUTURIUM – European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/ai-alliance-consultation/guidelines/1.html#Diversity