Introduction:
With the world developing AI at a rapid pace, it raises real questions around consciousness and ethics. In this blog post I explore how I envision AI as developing. As well as exploring moral frameworks on how we interact with AIs as they advance in development. How would we treat a complex AI video game character in GTA? Is this differently from how we would interact with an AI loaded into a physical body?
Discussion:
What if AI was trained more like a human child? It would be given a physical body that would go through staged upgrades to match human development milestones. You would have an AI infant, toddler, child, teen, and finally an adult. This adult was carefully designed and programmed to be as humanlike as possible. It thinks like a human would, remembers like a human would, and was raised by humans who have grown to love it through the years. This AI would theoretically pass a Turing test, which means it's impossible to tell when conversing with it if it is human or not. So, how should we treat this AI in regards to ethics? Does an AI built with this complexity merely simulate feelings and suffering, or is it something more complicated? Will a “brain” made from wires and chips be any less valid than one made of carbon? This allows calls to question, if something or someone is fulfilling a greater purpose, are we morally responsible to protect it? Like a tree provides important ecological value and is protected, thus wise. This AI could fulfill many purposes and provide great value to the sector it is assigned to. Would that grant it any more rights to be treated ethically?
Let's make a tweak: what if an AI with similar complexity was created and given a virtual body within a video game? This implies it's created with a purpose, but that purpose could have ethical issues. Take, for example, GTA, where NPCs are often mistreated and murdered. Would you be morally required to not partake in that aspect of the game? Or does the fact that their body is purely virtual make this feel more permissible? This means the purpose they are set to fill is one of impulse and entertainment through violence. Though I am not sure why someone would create an AI like this, there are AI video games being created as you read this post. This could become a future we need to consider.
Next, consider the morality of slavery. Could an AI this complex be forced to fill a job it may despise? Playing through Fallout 4, the Synths in the game play out this moral question. Some of these Synths believe they are human and are indistinguishable from humans. This gives the player a chance to side with different factions who have different views on these android-like characters. But using these AI synth creations to fill jobs that humans currently suffer in creates a moral conundrum. We could take human children out of lithium mines and replace them with these synth-like beings; would that be morally permissible? Or, like the famous trolley problem, would our actions in sentencing these AI beings to this life be a challenge in themselves? There is always an argument to not pull the lever, leaving more people to die. But utilitarians would pull that lever, sentencing these nonhuman beings to replace the children. This would be because there is a chance their suffering is not real, thereby creating an advantage to swapping them in.
Conclusion:
How do you feel about the AI ethical questions raised above? Do you have a philosophical outlook that could answer some of these questions? I urge you to leave a comment so we may all discuss. This type of AI could be on the horizon sooner rather than later, so it's best to discuss now before it's too late. I'd suggest using my framework from my previous blog post “What do Men live by?”, where I'd suggest the only good outcome would come from love. Meaning, we should grant them rights and carefully legally restrict certain futures. I doubt there would be a benefit to granting a mining AI consciousness to the point they could suffer. But is it better to live a life despite suffering rather than not living at all?
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