ARE YOU MORALLY ENGAGED?: ETHICAL CHALLENGES OF A.I.

Is A.I good or bad?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the world we live in. Most people use AI daily through smartphones, search engines, and applications; it is usually not called AI but that is what it is that remembers your searches and predicts your next words. AI abilities are growing and making jobs more accessible and cost-efficient for business owners. However, the question arises about trust and oversight.

The creators of the algorithms that run the applications and software may not be as transparent as we thought. Bostrom and Yudkowsky (2014) consider a plausible future where AI algorithms reject a specific demographic. Could it be from learned behavior, or is it in the original programming? The ethical challenges continue with “Responsibility, transparency, auditability, incorruptibility, predictability, and a tendency to not make innocent victims scream with helpless frustration: all criteria that apply to humans performing social functions; all criteria that must be considered in an algorithm intended to replace human judgment of social functions; all criteria that may not appear in a journal of machine learning considering how an algorithm scales up to more computers” (Bostrom & Yudkowsky, 2011, p. 3). The AI algorithms are not just created to finish the task but compete with social development and human beings.

Ethically, the bottom line is not the only part the machines should meet. The designers and developers of Deep Blue, the chess-playing AI, had to limit the development and keep control or give up control so it could fully develop and compete in the game (Bostrom & Yudkowsky, 2014). The success of AI without oversight is an example of what it could be when creating AI with morals and ethics; otherwise, a person would always be able to manipulate and control the results, making it easy for moral disengagement and dehumanization. Messick says, “People are usually unaware of the factors that bias or skew our ethical judgments, and we suffer from what we might call the illusion of objectivity” (Rhode, 2006, p. 95).

Take some time to think about how AI can help organizations maintain their moral and ethical standards?

Further reading:

Bostrom, N., & Yudkowsky, E. (2014). The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge University Press. https://nickbostrom.com/ethics/artificial-intelligence.pdf

Rhode, D. L. (2006). The Theory and Practice of Power, Judgment, and Policy. Jossey-Bass.