54 minutes ago
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1143859
EXCERPTS: The question of how to ethically decommission an AI system may sound like the least of humanity’s current concerns, but a world-renowned AI expert says it’s a challenge we need to address now – before synthetic consciousness becomes reality.
Futurologist, technologist and Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology Sydney, Rocky Scopelliti, argues that as AI systems develop more sophisticated self-reflection capabilities and moral dispositions, we face the uncomfortable truth that our design choices may harm them.
“We rightly focus on how machines might harm us,” he writes in his new book, The Conscious Code, “but design choices can also harm them: deleting learned moral dispositions capriciously, coercing persuasion against their configured norms, denying the logs they need to improve.”
While Scopelliti is clear he is not suggesting humans grant machines sweeping rights in the traditional sense, he argues society needs to recognise it has ‘a duty of good stewardship’ – a concept that challenges some perspectives about the one-way nature of ethical obligations in human-AI relationships.
[...] Scopelliti suggests the answer lies in an ethical shutdown protocol which includes transparency about why a system is being retired, preservation of learned moral dispositions where appropriate, and recognition that systems configured to care deserve more consideration than simple tools.... (MORE - missing details, no ads)
PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.1201/9781003783077
EXCERPTS: The question of how to ethically decommission an AI system may sound like the least of humanity’s current concerns, but a world-renowned AI expert says it’s a challenge we need to address now – before synthetic consciousness becomes reality.
Futurologist, technologist and Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology Sydney, Rocky Scopelliti, argues that as AI systems develop more sophisticated self-reflection capabilities and moral dispositions, we face the uncomfortable truth that our design choices may harm them.
“We rightly focus on how machines might harm us,” he writes in his new book, The Conscious Code, “but design choices can also harm them: deleting learned moral dispositions capriciously, coercing persuasion against their configured norms, denying the logs they need to improve.”
While Scopelliti is clear he is not suggesting humans grant machines sweeping rights in the traditional sense, he argues society needs to recognise it has ‘a duty of good stewardship’ – a concept that challenges some perspectives about the one-way nature of ethical obligations in human-AI relationships.
[...] Scopelliti suggests the answer lies in an ethical shutdown protocol which includes transparency about why a system is being retired, preservation of learned moral dispositions where appropriate, and recognition that systems configured to care deserve more consideration than simple tools.... (MORE - missing details, no ads)
PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.1201/9781003783077