WTF Is Ethical AI? A Primer

Then there is the question of ethics.  I mean, ethics - if you look it up on Wikipedia, you will see that ethical theory predates philosophical reflection (although its meaning was much closer to “virtue” or “excellence”). As you could expect, the discussion over its definition alone is enormous.  Ethical issues crop up in other branches of software probably at least as frequently as they do in my own field. As Charles Humble and Heather Joslyn recently noted “Bad software ruins lives, even without AI”.   

When it comes to “AI ethics”, the typical association is with Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics, which is unfortunate because they are based on a huge misconception. Perhaps we can find a better definition via a recent US news story: “Portman, Heinrich Urge National Science Foundation To Prioritize Safety and Ethics in Artificial Intelligence Research, Innovation”. The press release is about a letter that the two senators sent to the National Science Foundation (NSF), which - political and scientific merits apart - contains the following definition:

There were no specifics about which dangers might be related to AI safety, although the image that comes to mind is Terminator’s Skynet . However, “the potential AI has to discrimination” was repeated a couple of times in this letter. That is absolutely understandable, especially considering the current socio-political climate in the US. At the same time the repeated use of “discrimination” made it look like “AI ethics” was being reduced to “AI bias”. That is a hazardous reduction since, whilst AI bias is undoubtedly an issue, many other aspects of our daily lives impacted by AI can be seen through an ethical lens.

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