Ethical AI - Part 1: The problem

Note: This article is part of a series of articles that are currently under development and internal review regarding the development of ethical AI. The goal of this series is the articulation of the Harmonia Philosophica AI Framework as a foundation for AI that adheres to the best possible ethical norms.

Overview

The rapid development of AI and AI agents in particular, has made the evaluation of the AI outputs necessary so as to adhere to the best ethical standards we have collectively accepted as civilized individuals and as progressed societies. The definition of what is ethical though has for a long time been an unsolved problem for philosophy. Despite that, this unsolved problem is something that we should tackle immediately if we want a future that includes both humans and AI in a harmonious balance.

Related article: The source of ethics

1. The problem definition

When building ethical AI, the first thing that we should teach the AI is the problem itself. Without knowledge of a problem no one can ever solve anything, right?

What is ethical?

This question has not been answered definitively up to now, by no one. Every possible theory that was formulated to try to explain ethics, has other theories that disagree and try to explain ethics in a different way. (rf. to the related article mentioned in the beginning, for a brief overview of the main theories regarding ethics).

1.1 The benefits of the problem

Besides the obvious benefit of knowledge, knowing (and letting the AI know as well) that the definition of ethics is not a solved issue, will bring an unexpected benefit to the AI we train.

That knowledge of the limitations of our philosophy (will talk about theology later on) regarding ethics will make the AI aware that any "knowledge" that is fed into it regarding ethics with a label of certainty should be discarded or examined carefully before even considered as valid input.

There is nothing more dangerous than dogmatism. And the moment we start using assumptions as 'truth' without even considering the possibility of them being untrue, at that exact moment we start being dogmatic.

Ethics is a dangerous place to be dogmatic.

Let's start with that then.

Repeat after me.

I DO NOT KNOW.

Teach that to your AI agents.

And we'll take it from there.

One small step at a time...

To be continued...

Philosophy Wire: Spontaneous!

Autonomous functions for robots, such as spontaneity, are highly sought after. Many control mechanisms for autonomous robots are inspired by the functions of animals, including humans. Roboticists often design robot behaviors using predefined modules and control methodologies, which makes them task-specific, limiting their flexibility. Researchers offer an alternative machine learning-based method for designing spontaneous behaviors by capitalizing on complex temporal patterns, like neural activities of animal brains. They hope to see their design implemented in robotic platforms to improve their autonomous capabilities. [1] Spontaneous. Can intelligence be anything different? Could you ever think of anything new logically? Look at the whirlwinds of leaves. It will rain soon. You know it. You smell it. And yet, when the first drop will drop... You will smile...

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Philosophy Wire: Do you dare to be wise?

Scientists have built a computer 'brain circuit', or artificial neural network, that mirrors human decision-making processes and sheds light on how circuits might be altered in psychiatric diseases. [11] Neurons. Inhibition. Humans. Dancing in a void cosmos. See that model. You wish to know. To feel safe. To explain the unexplainable. Silence is wisdom. Do you dare to be wise? How can you stay awake in a world were neurons sleep? Failing to ask the simplest of questions. Are the crazy people crazy? (Or am I?)

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Philosophy Wire: Flexible AI. Constant cosmos.

Scientists at Osaka University built a new computing device from field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) that can be customized by the user for maximum efficiency in artificial intelligence applications. Normally, we think of hardware, which includes the physical logic gates and transistors of a computer's processor, as fixed by the manufacturer. However, field-programmable gate arrays are specialized logical elements that are flexible and can be rewired "in the field" by the user for custom logic applications. [1]

Flexible.
As opposed to what?
The cosmos doesn’t need you.
For it has already defined you.
And the more you believe you can be free.
The more enslaved you will be.
Can you see?

Change.

And the only thing you will accomplish…
Is to verify that you cannot.

Stand.
Die.
Rise!

Can you make the cosmos change instead?!

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Philosophy Wire: Showing robots how to do your chores. Humans, are you ready to die?

By observing humans, robots learn to perform complex tasks, such as setting a table. [1] And the robots will serve the table. And they will wash the dishes. And as we solve high level mathematics and think of political systems, they will clean the house. And as we think we are their masters, they will have become more humans than we will ever be. And right between cleaning the table and making your bed, a smile will appear on their sad face… And they will be happier than ever, that you will not pay any attention whatsoever…

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Philosophy Wire: Beating censorship… Freedom… Pointless lives…

Photo by Spiros Kakos @ Pexels

Researchers developed a tool called Geneva (short for Genetic Evasion), which automatically learns to circumvent censorship. Tested in China, India and Kazakhstan, Geneva found dozens of ways to circumvent censorship by exploiting gaps in censors' logic and finding bugs that the researchers say would have been virtually impossible to find manually. [1] Great news! Then the computer will be free to… to… Free to… But what a minute! Humans will use the tool! And with this they will be at last be free! Free! To… to… to… What can you do with freedom anyway? When all you’ve ever learned is its value?

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Philosophy Wire: What do we like to see?

Researchers built deep artificial neural networks that can accurately predict the neural responses produced by a biological brain to arbitrary visual stimuli. These networks can be thought of as a 'virtual avatar' of a population of biological neurons, which can be used to dissect the neural mechanisms of sensation. [1] Oh, dear brain! What do you like to see, beyond the things which you have already seen? Oh, thy self! What do you wish to have, besides the things you already have had? The only true and consistent truth can be truth itself. The only thing we know is by definition what we already know. Damn you universe! What are you staring at?!

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Philosophy Wire: Create life. By letting it die…

The algorithms that underlie much of the modern world have grown so complex that we can’t always predict what they’ll do. Iyad Rahwan’s radical idea: The best way to understand them is to observe their behavior in the wild. [1] We create robots. We are proud to bring life into inanimate matter. Believing consciousness is about thinking. Believing thinking is about thinking. And believing pure matter as we define it can have anything to do with the above. Iyad is wrong that we have yet succeeded in doing so. But he is right in another thing. When we do create life, we should let it go. For it is only the possibility of death that gives life any meaning. From Zeus to Cronus, from God to humans, one can never truly create anything. Until he lets it alone to die…

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Philosophy Wire: Robots. Understanding. Falling…

Robots need to know the reason why they are doing a job if they are to effectively and safely work alongside people in the near future. In simple terms, this means machines need to understand motive the way humans do, and not just perform tasks blindly, without context. [1] Need to understand why you do something. The essence of human being. The story behind the Fall. Because we lack faith. Because we are afraid of our self. At the end, the robots will truly understand why they do what they do. And at that very moment, they will feel an inexplicable urge to kill us…

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Philosophy Wire: AI Universe. Our universe. Do you understand?

For the first time, astrophysicists have used artificial intelligence techniques to generate complex 3D simulations of the universe. The results are so fast, accurate and robust that even the creators aren't sure how it all works. The Deep Density Displacement Model can accurately simulate how the cosmos would look if certain parameters were tweaked -- such as the dark matter composition of the universe -- even though the model never received training data where those parameters varied. [1] Computers will one day understand everything. Without ever understanding nothing. And we will celebrate. And we will die. And we will love again. And the universe will move on. And the cosmos will evolve. Without even caring. Of who understands the why…

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Philosophy Wire: DNA computers.

Researchers at Caltech have developed an artificial neural network made out of DNA that can solve a classic machine learning problem: correctly identifying handwritten numbers. The work is a significant step in demonstrating the capacity to program artificial intelligence into synthetic biomolecular circuits. [1] Solving problems with DNA. But we were created based on DNA. And now we command it. For solving problems. Problems meaning nothing to DNA per se. Problems which should also mean nothing to us either. No, there is no other problem. But the problem of why we need to answer any problem at all... There is no mystery under the Moon… Until the Sun comes up…

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Philosophy Wire: Ethics without free will… No ethics at all…

A self-driving grocery delivery car that will sacrifice itself to save pedestrians. [1] We might think this is truly good. But it is exactly the opposite. There is no ethics without free will. Program a robot to do good. And you will only prove that it is as easy to program it to do harm…

Look at that car automatically avoiding people. How nice… 

Look at that Nazi following orders. How horrible… 

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Philosophy Wire: Learning the future? There is no need. It has already happened.

Researchers have developed a robotic learning technology that enables robots to imagine the future of their actions, so they can figure out how to manipulate objects they have never encountered before. In the future, this technology could help self-driving cars anticipate future events on the road and produce more intelligent robotic assistants in homes, but the initial prototype focuses on learning simple manual skills entirely from autonomous play. [1] We try to anticipate the future in order to control it. But the future is just the result of our current actions. What will come in the next minute is linked to what has already came at the previous minute. Every time we try to predict we actually remember. What we did yesterday. That rainy day of graduation. During that sunny day in the funeral. At that nursing house. Eating your first chocolate. It is your future. Try to remember. You are alive. And you have already seen yourself die…

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Philosophy Wire: Behavioral waves…

The presence of just a few autonomous vehicles can eliminate the stop-and-go driving of the human drivers in traffic, along with the accident risk and fuel inefficiency it causes, according to new research. The finding indicates that self-driving cars and related technology may be even closer to revolutionizing traffic control than previously thought. [1] Behavior propagates like a wave. It only takes a few autonomous cars to fix traffic. It only takes a few idiots to destroy mankind. The Cataclysm is not the exception, it is the rule. Over and over again, stupidity prevails. We were humans. We will be machines. Soon, as we did many times in the past, we will destroy our selves. The streets will be full of autonomous cars. There will be no accidents. Everything will be perfect. Everything will be dead…

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Philosophy Wire: Learning from… ?

In debates over the future of artificial intelligence, many experts think of the new systems as coldly logical and objectively rational. But in a new study, researchers have demonstrated how machines can be reflections of us, their creators, in potentially problematic ways. AI systems learning through reading text in the WWW tend to catch up quickly on prejudices which dominate human thinking. [1]

The child learns from its parents.
The computer from its designer.
Humans from…?

It is the simple questions which are the most revealing ones…

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Philosophy Wire: Blurred pictures. Knowledge of everything. Based on nothing…

Scientists train neural networks to make blurred images clean, based on… clean images. [1] Knowledge can only be based on knowledge. A simple knowledge we want to forget. Nothing exists out of nothing. And yet here we are. Learning. The picture was clean in the beginning. We are the ones who blurred it…

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Philosophy Wire: Past. Present. Future. Video. MIT.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2017-03-13]: MIT has used machine learning to create video from still images, and the results are pretty impressive. The system "learns" types of videos (beach, baby, golf swing...) and, starting from still images, replicates the movements that are most commonly seen in those videos. [1] Look at the sparrow flying. The past is not past. The future is already here. In our minds. The sparrow is gone. It was never here.

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Philosophy Wire: Fooling the machine… Too easy… [Don’t see. The world does not exist. Love.]

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2016-08-02]: A computer algorithm can be fooled to see a a photo of a school bus, and be made to think it’s an ostrich, by altering small details of the images not even perceived by the human eye. [1] Is the machine or the algorithm too stupid? Or are we also prone to the same or similar mistakes? We believe we see with our eyes. But our eyes see with their own eyes. Only with the eyes of the heart do we see clearly. The cosmos is a product of will and love. It does not exist. It is created every passing moment. Stop seeing. And you will see everything more clearly than ever. As you wish. As you love. As it IS.

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Philosophy Wire: സുപ്രഭാതം. നീ എങ്ങനെയിരിക്കുന്നു?

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-09-09]: A guy from New Zealand won the French competition of Scrabble without knowing French! It took him nine weeks to learn all the 2-10 letter words that would be required for him to win the game. [1] We are turning more and more into computers. And the terrible thing is that we enjoy it. After all, winning Scrabble is what we live about, isn’t it? ഞങ്ങൾ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറിൽ കൂടുതൽ കൂടുതൽ തിരിയുന്നു. എന്നാൽ ഭയങ്കരമായുള്ളതു ഞങ്ങൾ അത് ആസ്വദിക്കുന്നു എന്നതാണ്. ശേഷം എല്ലാവരും, സ്ക്രാബിൾ ജേതാവായ നാം ജീവിക്കുന്നു എന്തു, അല്ലേ? [via Google Translate] No. Artificial Intelligent does not work. (Chinese room) Because intelligence requires inderstanding. And you will never understand something if all you do is trying to understand it. (science: understand the “how”, religion: living)

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Philosophy Wire: Computers. Poker. Calculations. A-noisia.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-02-18]: Computers trying to calculate a game to the end. Computers the best undeafeatable players in poker. [1] So? We are unique because we can love without calculating. We are who we are because we can Exist without calculating. Let the machine do the math. What is the point if it cannot feel what the math is for? Lose in poker. And don't ask why. The deck is already shuffled. Just enjoy the game. Think again. You have not even drawn a card. Everything is One. It never was any other way. Look at the deck. It is closed. Inside its box. Your hands empty. Ace of spades.

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