EthicsSafetyTrustworthinesscs.AI
On the ethics of constructing conscious AI
Shimon Edelman
March 13, 2023
arXiv.org
1 citations
Key Takeaways
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The field of AI ethics has been shaped by fictional narratives of artificial creatures rebelling against humans — drawing on works like Frankenstein, the Golem, and Karel Čapek's robots — which has created a narrow focus on protecting humans from AI rather than considering broader ethical dimensions.
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Current AI ethics discourse largely ignores the possibility that artificial beings might need protection from their creators, despite literary traditions often portraying such creatures sympathetically as victims of exploitation or violence rather than as inherent threats.
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There is an asymmetry between fictional and real-world perspectives on AI ethics: while classic literature often presents artificial creatures as deserving of moral consideration when mistreated, contemporary AI ethics theory has largely abandoned this consideration in favor of focusing exclusively on human safety and protection.
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The paper argues for a less commonly considered ethical angle — that responsible AI development should examine not only how to prevent AI from harming humans, but also how humans should ethically treat artificial beings they create.
Abstract
In its pragmatic turn, the new discipline of AI ethics came to be dominated by humanity's collective fear of its creatures, as reflected in an extensive and perennially popular literary tradition. Dr. Frankenstein's monster in the novel by Mary Shelley rising against its creator; the unorthodox golem in H. Leivick's 1920 play going on a rampage; the rebellious robots of Karel Čapek -- these and hundreds of other examples of the genre are the background against which the preoccupation of AI ethics with preventing robots from behaving badly towards people is best understood. In each of these three fictional cases (as well as in many others), the miserable artificial creature -- mercilessly exploited, or cornered by a murderous mob, and driven to violence in self-defense -- has its author's sympathy. In real life, with very few exceptions, things are different: theorists working on the ethics of AI completely ignore the possibility of robots needing protection from their creators. The present book chapter takes up this, less commonly considered, ethical angle of AI.