[aiethics] Let's begin...

[Ing. Pedro E. Colla]

Alicebot AI Ethics Committee - http://www.alicebot.org


>> Ethic systems do differ, a whole lot; key is to find out
>> what the common denominators are in order to try to
>> address them.
>
>that might be for example the widely known "human rights"...

Human Rights are partially a legal right (law) which differs from
country to country, the remaining are a set of good intentions
that aren't widely adopted as ethical values; no matter what the
variable you use to weight or ponderate there are substantial
non-compliances.

>> Some a decade ago I participated on a corporate technollogy forum
>> when the appointed guru predicted that by some 2030-2040
>> to turn off a machine would have legal and ethical implications;
>
>If machines have developed a kind of conscience until then, I suppose =
some
>might even call it "murder"...

Well, the guy was vague on purpose; everyone filled the gaps, on
the extreme (a little extreme) "murder" could be an interpretation;
most fellows I commented the topic with had filled the gap more like
in the sense to killing a pet with no reason making it suffer in the =
process
(which, BTW, it's unlawful on many countries including mine based on
a circa 1880 law).

>
>> But today it's a penal crime on many countries to conduct
>> actions that makes machines unavailable as many virii
>> related trials dictated (i.e. US vs Morris) and surely the
>> charges might be hefty if the subject machine is under some
>> key civil services duty. So I don't laugh anymore.
>
>but up to now they are being charged for damaging or destroying (or
>stealing) data and technical equipment, not for "hurting" a machine by
>infecting it with a virus or running a DOS-attack against it...but one =
day
>this might be a crime equal to hitting someone over the head with a
baseball
>bat to render him unconscious...

Yes, still we've a couple of decades to go, and machines already are
so pervasive that damaging them means often damaging persons and =
offenders
are applied with a transitive interpretation of law. It's more than
destroying property alone, come and destroy an ER life keeping system, =
or
an utility control system; if people got hurt it's more than property.

Perhaps some day it become not transitive any longer but direct.

>
>> One almost funny thing is that if a person makes some statements
>> contained in the standard AIML set will commit
>> (at least in technical law terms) a federal offense in many
>> countries of what we call the Western civilization, not to
>> mention a severely punished offense on some
>> islamic countries. Should we address that? (please refer
>> on my comments of cheap declaration of being a Global
>> Village while being clueless on what it means and implies).
>
>I think it will be impossible to find a solution that will satisfy =
everyone
>on the whole planet, but I'd say we should officially disapprove of (or
>to? -insert correct preposition here- ;-> )content that involves things
like
>racism or discrimination of all other kinds and other things that we =
would
>all consider as "not right"...

The set of solutions that might be not illegal in the whole planet are
much much smaller than the ones that will satisfy the whole plantet.

However, if we call ourselves a "global village" we should be careful
of issues like this.

It's fun to watch walking the world declamations of the "Global Village"
as long as the "Global Village" means the entire world adopting the set
of beliefs of Biloxi,Missisipi (or any other place). I heard the term
abussed so many times that I could not avoid to turn cynical when =
expossed
to it.

>
>What I meant by asking "what is NOT our purpose" was for example that =
we
>could never use...let's say religion as a basis for our ethical values, =
as
>then we would always have issues that are an offense to one religion =
and
>perfectly alright to another...and so (IMHO) we won't be able to =
protect
the
>users' religious feeling in a way other than just avoiding any direct
>negative statement about any religion or ethnic group in the official =
AIML
>set...

Yes, addressing religion would surely lead to ... religious discussions,
literally.

But it's worth note that a big foundation of the commonly accepted
ethical systems (as a system of beliefs, or if you prefers a collective
acerb) comes right from religious systems; some religion comes to a =
point
where they step into very low level of details about day to day life =
while
others kept themselves at a much higher (espiritual) level; but from the
list of DOs and DON'Ts usually accepted on a given region many of them
have their roots on religion usually (just addressing social issues with
no actual legal enforcement).

>And this applies to numerous things other than religion...
>How we should deal with other people writing their own AIML including
racist
>content for example is a different story and should not be addressed =
before
>we have developed a "ruleset" OUR alicebot must comply to...

The same way Microsoft deals with any idiot writing a bad Windows =
program,
just allowing or not allowing to include some sort of icon of compliance
or proof of certification previously making it a trademark so it's usage
(or prohibition to use) could be legally enforced.

If you put the little and cute Windows icon in your program it's your =
free
choice and you are not asked to pay anything, but you ought to comply =
with
a list of some 10 points in your program; you don't and old Billy has =
the
legal right to come after you and force you to remove that icon.

It's not related nor in conflict with the concept of free software or
open software; it's just brand building or brand protection.

>I think pushing the discussions just for the sake of being able to =
answer
>questions after the AI movie is released is not a good reason...
>We should be productive in a higher sense than just having something to
>show.

The AI movie was just an example of the mixture of pragmatic things =
needed
to be addressed at the same time than other far fetched topics.

One thing is sure, if in the movie some AI entity does something morally
questionable the media would seek persons on the AI environment to make
an statement on the issue; better for the foundation to have something
structured to say at that time if this committee is worth investing =
time.

If the foundation needs to improvise something at that time then it =
would
be better to continue improvising for the foreseable future and rename =
this
committee as the "mailing list of pals cheat chatting on ethical =
issues".

>> at least some overall statement of the things that are our
>> foundation (the so called policy of the beginning) and a
>> general outline of what we want to accomplish.
>
>I agree with that...again this is what I wanted to say :-)

Well, we are in agreement then.

>> One handy thing about ethical systems is that aren't usually
>> enforceable (otherwise they are a law system); and I said
>> it's handy because we could not possibly enforce it from
>> the technical side at this point.
>
>The other question is: If we _had_ the means to enforce it, would
>"enforcing" an ethical system not ridicule itself?

No, it would become a legal system (law =3D values + enforcement).

>When it comes to avoiding this, I'd almost say "better men than us have
>tried"...

But none as smart and cute as we're :-).

>What about an official "seal of approval" issued by a committee at the
ALICE
>AI foundation functioning as the executive wing of the ethics =
committee? We
>cannot ensure that AIML will not be used for unethical purposes =
(whatever
>"unethical" may be), but at least we can make sure that a user who =
wants to
>have a good clean conversation with a bot based on AIML just needs to =
look
>for a bot which is A.L.I.C.E.-certified...

Yes, thought on something similar above.

The practical implementation of such thing would surely be challenging,
but could be done I guess.

>I'm thinking of Rich's original intention to keep Alice suitable for
>children for example...

Suitable for children.... what a vague concept. A children from where?
What a children is?

>We might even extend this to ratings similar to the ones that are =
applied
to
>movies (G, R, X, PG...)

Not saying it could not be done, but the cultural reference framework
is so vastly wide that it would be challenging.

I travel a lot, worldwide, because of my work. And have many chances
to watch the same movie over and over at different places (there are =
places
where little else could be done than to watch movies); qualification =
systems
do differ but making the bridge I saw movies that were X in USA, R in
Germany, illegal in Jordan and free viewed or PG on Neederland (!), not
to mention places where it had been "reformated to suit your screen" and
quite a lot of passages were left out in the process just pour le =
gallerie.

>
>> Perhaps a good starting point, albeit not a novel one, are
>> the Dr. Assimov "law of robotics"; since they could not be
>> enforced it should be renamed by now as "ethic set of
>> robotics" but behind the initial attempt to consider it a
>
>some of them have already been adopted in the FCC rules for hardware...

Well, good Dr.Assimov was either a natural or expend a great deal of =
time
to develop them; but there are a consistent system only when used =
together.

Perhaps in the future somebody could develop a module that actually
supress answers inconsistent with those values (today it is more like
Sci-Fi), but if the ethic declamation is there somebody would think
on that and given the appropriate time will figure out something. Who
knows...

Ing. Pedro E. Colla
Adrogue-BA
Argentina