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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.

Journal 4
In high school, I was on the honor council, a group of elected students and faculty whose job it was to sit as a jury on disciplinary hearings for cheating, stealing, lying, and plagiarism, and, on the side, to promote good honorable behavior in the classroom. As a member of the council for four years, I was privy to the knowledge of some pretty foolish and selfish actions that were carried out by my classmates. Due to our pledge of confidentiality, we were not allowed to make any of the verdicts or details of the cases public. Thinking about it now, as we have begun to discuss the general theories of ethics in class, I wish I had known some of the theories then in order to apply them to not only the cases but also to the sort of “burden” of carrying the stories around with me, as I sometimes felt that they were.
The social contract theory, the Hobbesian idea that the rules which govern us instill an intrinsic duty upon us to uphold them, was eluded to many times by one of the teachers who sat on the counsel. Dr. Kasten, who was the sort of model of honor and ethics had sat on the council for almost twenty years. Every time that someone new came before us, the rest of the members patiently waited for his spiel on honor and duty and upholding the rules. He explained in highly metaphorical jargon that we are just pieces in a puzzle, a puzzle whose form had been laid out by years and years of tweaking and refining, that we were privileged to be a part of this environment of trust, and that actions not only affect the individual but the whole community. These speeches were iconic and seemed to trash the notion that one would act on a theory such as subjective realism or ethical egoism. I remember seeing the faces of the culprits fall immediately as they began to feel the weight of Dr. Kasten’s words. Although not all fond memories, I find myself returning to the hearing room and Dr. Kasten’s words whenever a discussion about ethics arises.

As the week comes to a close, I find myself thinking on two details.

1. What constitutes consciousness? We say that we are conscious and that there are levels of consciousness but how can we measure it, in its entirety, if we ourselves don’t know the limits. There is no telling what we can discover about the mind so who’s to say what level we are on and how we should compare to other beings.
2. Ethics have always confused me. Because there can be more than one answer, none of them completely correct, it bothers me. As some people say there are multiple ways to get to the same place. In science, this is true but you should, if you are doing it right, end up in the same area, if the original science is wrong you just present the different results and let the scientific community test again to find the truth. In ethics there are multiple way to reach multiple ways to reach different places or the same place with details slightly shifted.

During this week we learned about the diverse ethic theories that can be applied to the behaviors of society. It was interesting to note that in order to be able to judge, and make a rational decision when confronting an ethical dilemma, one must separate their morality from reason. Thus, in theory ethics and morality cannot coexist when formulating a decision. Even in Rawl’s theory of justice he explains that the person should be hidden behind a “veil of ignorance” when making a decision or if holding a higher position dictating laws, where they are not driven by their moral values but rather by the facts because they don’t know if someday they would be in the same situation. Taking all this into consideration, we then move to the reading of “The Bicentennial Man” where the story of the robot trying to defy societal standards by advocating for the rights of robots, can be applied to the time in history of a segregated community. The black community did the same thing by defying the Jim Crow laws established during the time period. For the example of “The Bicentennial Man,” Andrew Martin believed that if he could understand, analyze, and behave like humans did he should to be able to enjoy the freedom and rights of those individuals. For the black community during the time of segregation it was the same situation; if the only thing that “separated” from one another was the pigment of their skin, then why couldn’t they enjoy the same rights the white community did. Thus the issue lies in the question of where to draw the line in order to determine whether what we as a society establish as the qualities and characteristics necessary for an individual to fit certain standards imposed by the law or even the opinions of others. Even in today’s world we see these issues were ethical dilemmas still exist in the form of discrimination based on color, sexuality, and religion. With the new presidency we see the president of a nation whose national anthem quotes “land of the free,” trying to establish laws based on his moral notions and what he believes in, which transgress the purpose of this country and the opportunities it has to offer. This in turn makes me feel like we are living in a world were this said line, necessary to distinguish whether the foundations of decisions and laws are based on reason rather than morality, is not clearly established thus allowing authorities to abuse its power.

In this week’s class, we talked a lot about the Red Badge of Courage as well as the ideas of ethics. There were many things The Red Badge of Courage illustrated at war that made me think about the similarities of war today. To start, in the beginning of the novel, Henry joins the war because he feels as though being a solider would bring him honor. His motivation to join the war and his expectations were very different than the brutal reality that he soon experienced. Henry did not realize the pure extent of blood and death that war encompassed. This is in some ways similar to today and our perceptions of war. In today’s society, people who are not in the military do not fully understand what it is like to be fighting and living in a combat zone. War is almost some gory whimsical land that people can only imagine what it is like. Now with video games like Call of Duty, people are desensitized to the brutality of war because they feel like they know what it is like based off what they see in the game. To some people, war is just like the game of Call of Duty. However, people in the military or those who live in war zones realize the realities of war just like Henry did.

We also went in depth about the basics of ethics and the different forms or theories of it. In my ethics class, we also learn about different ethical theories, how to apply ethics, and ways to analyze scenarios that have moral dilemmas. However, one topic that truly intrigues me is the topic of cultural relativism. It made me realize that there is a large amount of different cultures around the world that all value different things. There are laws that are based off these cultures and religions that are unalike to the others. In this sense, there is no universal ethics or moral guidelines that everyone follows or must follow. In this regard, one cannot judge another cultures morals or guides to ethics. Maybe this is why there is still so much turmoil and violence between countries and cultures. Cultural Relativism makes it almost impossible to establish universal ethical and moral guidelines and therefore there is always an excuse to have violence.