This week we began our focus on ethics. To begin the discussion we focused on the roll AI has and the idea of consciousness and choice. In particular we discussed the ethics of AI in self driving cars and robots.
The discussion of ethical choice in regards to Self Driving cars focused on the choices the AI must make in choosing who will die in several scenarios. Is the law the ethical choice or should it favor saving more lives? Should it favor humans with social standing or education or should it favor the youth? These are a few of the dilemmas that can exist that these AI need to be able to choose between. These choices represent social dilemmas that reflect the difficult choices AI have and face.
The second major discussion was about the Bicentennial man. In this reading Science created a conscious robot. Through the reading he strove to be increasingly human. From this reading we discussed the ethics of independence and what makes consciousness so ‘special’.
I personally am enjoying this portion of class because as a computer science student, this directly relates to my work. I am a cognitive science research assistant so looking into AI is literally what I am researching. Complex decision making models like the ones we looked at in ‘The Bicentennial man’ are very closely related to what I have worked on to this point. Very interested to see where this class is heading in terms of discussion. There are a variety of branches that we can take to continue the discussion of ethics and I am looking forward to it.