Transcript Lectureweek103EthicalIssues

CSE 190 Neural Networks:
Ethical Issues in
Artificial Intelligence
Gary Cottrell
Week 10 Lecture 3
4/7/2017
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Introduction

Some of the issues:
Will robots have rights?
 What if robots become much smarter than us? (the
singularity)
 What if robots kill people or worse, make humans
extinct?


As researchers, we need to think about these
issues now.
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Introduction

Some of the issues:


Will robots have rights?
Movie time!
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The Singularity
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The Singularity
“Within thirty years, we will have the
technological means to create superhuman
intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will
be ended.”
— "The
Coming Technological Singularity"
(1993) by Vernor Vinge (SDSU Professor
and SciFi author)
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The Three Laws of Robotics
(Isaac Asimov)
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through
inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human
beings except where such orders would conflict
with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as
such protection does not conflict with the First or
Second Laws.
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Killer Robots
Over 1,000 leading
experts in artificial
intelligence have
signed an open
letter calling for a
ban on military AI
development and
autonomous
weapons, as
depicted within the
Terminator sci-fi
franchise.
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Killer Robots
AI Signatories
include:
Stuart Russell
Peter Norvig
Yann LeCun
Geoff Hinton
Yoshua Bengio
Juergen Schmidhuber
Lawrence Saul
Charles Elkan
Garrison Cottrell
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Killer Robots
Other Signatories
include:
Stephen Hawking
Elon Musk
Steve Wozniak
Dan Dennett
Noam Chomsky
But not:
Barak Obama
Vladmir Putin
ISIS
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Killer Robots
What are some arguments for autonomous weapons?
Evan Ackerman’s arguments
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Killer Robots
What are some arguments for autonomous weapons?
The problem with this [pronouncement by AI researchers] is that no letter, UN
declaration, or even a formal ban ratified by multiple nations is going to
prevent people from being able to build autonomous, weaponized robots.
Generally speaking, technology itself is not inherently good or bad: it’s what
we choose to do with it that’s good or bad, and you can’t just cover your eyes
and start screaming “STOP!!!” if you see something sinister on the horizon
when there’s so much simultaneous potential for positive progress.
What we really need, then, is a way of making autonomous armed robots
ethical, because we’re not going to be able to prevent them from existing.
Evan Ackerman’s arguments
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Killer Robots
What are some arguments for autonomous weapons?
The problem with this [treaty by major countries] is that no treaty, UN
declaration, or even a formal ban ratified by multiple nations is going to
prevent people from being able to build nuclear bombs.
Generally speaking, technology itself is not inherently good or bad: it’s what
we choose to do with it that’s good or bad, and you can’t just cover your eyes
and start screaming “STOP!!!” if you see something sinister on the horizon
when there’s so much simultaneous potential for positive progress.
What we really need, then, is a way of making nuclear bombs ethical,
because we’re not going to be able to prevent them from existing.
Evan Ackerman’s arguments
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Killer Robots
What are some arguments for autonomous weapons?
What we really need, then, is a way of making autonomous armed robots
ethical, because we’re not going to be able to prevent them from existing.
Could autonomous armed robots perform better than armed humans in combat,
resulting in fewer casualties (combatant or non-combatant) on both sides?
I think that it will be possible for robots to be as good (or better) at identifying
hostile enemy combatants as humans, since there are rules that can be followed
(called Rules of Engagement) to determine whether or not using force is
justified. For example, does your target have a weapon? Is that weapon pointed
at you? Has the weapon been fired? Have you been hit? These are all things
that a robot can determine using any number of sensors that currently exist.
Evan Ackerman’s arguments
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Killer Robots
What are some arguments for autonomous weapons?
Why technology can lead to a reduction in casualties on the
battlefield
•The ability to act conservatively: i.e., they do not need to protect themselves in
cases of low certainty of target identification. Autonomous armed robotic
vehicles do not need to have self-preservation as a foremost drive, if at all.
They can be used in a self sacrificing manner if needed and appropriate without
reservation by a commanding officer. There is no need for a ‘shoot first, askquestions later’ approach, but rather a ‘first-do-no-harm’ strategy can be
utilized instead. They can truly assume risk on behalf of the noncombatant,
something that soldiers are schooled in, but which some have difficulty
achieving in practice.
Ronald C. Arkin’s arguments
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Killer Robots
What are some arguments for autonomous weapons?
Why technology can lead to a reduction in casualties on the
battlefield
• Unmanned robotic systems can be designed without emotions that cloud
their judgment or result in anger and frustration with ongoing battlefield
events.
Ronald C. Arkin’s arguments
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Killer Robots
What are some arguments for autonomous weapons?
Why technology can lead to a reduction in casualties on the
battlefield
•Intelligent electronic systems can integrate more information from more
sources far faster before responding with lethal force than a human possibly
could in real-time.
•When working in a team of combined human soldiers and autonomous
systems as an organic asset, they have the potential capability of independently
and objectively monitoring ethical behavior in the battlefield by all parties,
providing evidence and reporting infractions that might be observed. This
presence alone might possibly lead to a reduction in human ethical infractions.
Ronald C. Arkin’s arguments
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Ethical Considerations



Some of the issues:
 Will robots have rights?
 What if robots become much smarter than us? (the
singularity)
 What if robots kill people or worse, make humans
extinct?
As researchers, we need to think about these issues
now.
I’m not saying to decide one way or another –
just that you need to think about it!
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