AD8013 UNIT-1 ETHICS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS OF AI

Role of Artificial Intelligence in Human Life, Understanding Ethics, Why

Ethics in AI? Ethical Considerations of AI, Current Initiatives in AI and Ethics,
Ethical Issues with our relationship with artificial Entities

1.Role of Artificial Intelligence in Human Life:

Artificial Intelligence is the possession of simulated human

intelligence by machines, it is synonymous to machine intelligence.
It is programmed and designed by developers and it can act and
think like a human. AI becomes one of the important parts of daily
life.

In a wide area of day-to-day services, AI technology is used. This

technology reduces the human effort. People are using this
technology in many industries to develop autonomous robots for
performing various activities. The machine can increase the speed
of work and process and give an accurate result.

AI technology is spreading wide across all the fields, to reduce the

efforts of humans and provide optimised results. This blog will help
you know the importance of Artificial intelligence in our daily
lives. Artificial Intelligence Course helps you to attain a deeper
understanding and necessary skills in the field of Artificial
Intelligence.

The role of Artificial Intelligence in day-to-day life falls under two

categories. They are,

 Artificial Intelligence in Software

 Embodied Artificial Intelligence

1.1 Artificial Intelligence in Software

Artificial Intelligence software is a computer program designed to

mimic human actions and does not require any peripheral devices
to perform. Software with Artificial Intelligence can be downloaded
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from any online store and can be installed on the existing device.
They help in making the daily routine much simpler than before.
The importance of Artificial Intelligence Software is of four types in
the industry. They are,

 Artificial Intelligence Platforms have built-in algorithms to

provide space to build an application from the scratch.

 Chatbots helps in providing active conversations imitating

humans’ response.

 Deep Learning Software offers image recognition, speech

recognition, etc.

 Machine Learning Software helps the computer learn

through the data and work accordingly.

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Voice Assistants
AI backs up the voice assistants like Google Home, Siri, Cortona,
and Alexa to decode the voice commands of their masters. AI also
helps these applications to take up the databases from the cloud
storage platforms to give back the tailored search engine results.
Voice assistants are also deployed in healthcare to detect diseases
through vocal biomarkers. In telehealth applications, voice-based
chat boxes are made available for screening and classifying.

Face detection
Face detection is one of the most popular uses of Artificial
Intelligence in our daily life. It uses the Image Processing
technology of Artificial Intelligence to identify faces with the help of
distance between two eyes, shape of the face, edges, and other
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features. This face ID unlock feature is commonly seen in the

smartphones of today.

Face recognition software is using Generative Adversarial Neural

Networks (GANN) to lower the margin of error. These neural
networks are also being honed to detect fraudulent use of Deepfake
technology. AI software, that detects facial expressions to
determine mood and intent is also being developed by several
sectors. Emotion AI or Affective Computing is a growing field of
study for assessing client satisfaction.

Financial and Banking Sector

In Banking, Financial Services and Insurance(BFSI) Sector the AI
technology is used to handle the numerous activities like the
investment in stocks, financial operations, and much more. The AI
technology can help the bank to provide better services to the
customer and give them hassle-free banking solutions. Chatbots
provide a strong return on investment in terms of cost reductions,
making them one of the most widely deployed AI applications
across industries.

Personalized Marketing
To increase engagement, brands use AI-driven personalization
solutions based on customer data. According to aOneSpot Research
report, 88 percent of surveyed consumers believe that more
personalized content makes them feel better about a brand.

Recent AI innovations claim to use computer vision to predict the

performance of an advertisement, assisting brands in reaching the
right people and serving those who require those products. Learn
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Depending on the marketing stage, AI marketing apps can assist
both prospects and retargeted customers. Artificial Intelligence is
used with Augmented (AU) Reality for the customers to choose from
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the wide range of product collections of an online shopping website

or the store itself.

Healthcare
In the Medical Science sector, AI technology is used in the number
of applications and gives an incredible value. AI technology is used
for analytics, research and also used to develop a personal health
care assistant. Bots are developed to give support to customers. It
is used in a hospital for scheduling an appointment with 24/7
assistance. Image Processing in Artificial Intelligence helps in
X-ray Imaging, PET Scans, UV Imaging, Medical CT, Cancer Cell
Image Processing, and much more.

Heavy Industries
In Heavy Industries AI is widely used in the production units. They
are designed as a robot to carry out specific tasks autonomously.
They can displace the materials from one place to another, without
a reduction in the efficiency of the machines.

Not only in the production they are also used in the planning phase
to manage stocks, raw materials and inventories. Using AI
technology in the big industry can help them to complete their
tasks on time and help them to generate more profits in
businesses.

Cyber Security
The major role of Artificial Intelligence is that it can improve cyber
security systems. It performs by leveraging data from previous
threats and learning patterns and indicators that appear to predict
and prevent attacks. In addition to preventing external threats, AI
can monitor internal threats or breaches and recommend corrective
actions, resulting in data theft or abuse prevention.

AI-based cyber security systems can provide the most up-to-date

knowledge of global and industry-specific threats, allowing you to
make more informed prioritization decisions based not just on what
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could be used to attack your systems, but also on what is most

likely to be used to attack your systems.

Air Transport
Artificial Intelligence in Air ways is used for fuel efficiency
optimization. The deployed AI systems with Machine Learning
algorithms collect and analyze flight data such as aircraft type and
weight, route distance and altitudes, weather, and so on. These
data help in estimating the optimal amount of fuel needed for the
flight.

Many airlines improve their customer service with AI -powered

chatbots that assist passengers with flight booking and
management, baggage tracking, answering questions, and other
types of assistance.

Gaming and Entertainment

The importance of Artificial Intelligence in streaming apps is that
they recommend custom content based on the user’s interaction
with various media. These apps create catalogues of music, movies,
and TV shows tailored to each individual user’s preferences by
using AI to parse through ever-increasing user data.

Innovations in gaming Artificial Intelligence has concentrated on

giving more interesting challenges to the gamer rather than
assessing the gamer’s mindset. Some of these gaming applications
use Virtual Reality (VR) headsets to provide Cognitive Behavioral
Therapy (CBT) for better engagement with the person. As the game
progresses, AI assists these games in adapting to the user’s
behaviour based on examined stimuli.

Navigation and Travel

The Artificial Intelligence programmers’ work behind navigation
apps like Waze and Google Maps never ends. The digital maps are
created based on geographical images provided by the satell ite. The
importance of Artificial Intelligence is that with the use of
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predictive models, it assists in determining paths on satellite

photos covered by natural overgrowth. Regular route changes have
been made easier because of the imaging methods based on
Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Graph Neural Networks
(GNN).

Security and Surveillance

It is practically hard for a human to keep a continual check on
many CCTV network monitors at the same time. As a result, we’ve
felt compelled to automate such monitoring operations and improve
them using machine learning approaches.

Artificial Intelligence frees up human surveillants to focus on

verifying and responding to critical situations. AI video monitoring
software handles the ongoing monitoring and detection aspect of
surveillance. You could ask, Why do we need Artificial Intelligence
if humans could perform the same task effortlessly? The reason is
Artificial intelligence can detect abnormal activity that human eyes
may overlook.

Surveillance systems in high-risk public venues, such as

government buildings, use an extension of AI-based facial
recognition software. At the moment, liberal governments are
attempting to mitigate the possibility of privacy breaches as a
result of AI spies.

Embodied Artificial Intelligence

Embodied Artificial Intelligence is the hardware created for

installing Al to mimic human actions and to work on automation.
Thus, Embodied Artificial Intelligence entails the creation of
specific devices with AI capabilities. They move thr ough the
physical world and affect it with their actions just like a human
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would do. The hardware with AI can be seen in Self-driven cars,

drones, etc.

Self-Driven Vehicles
Autonomous Vehicle Technology with AI innovation is taking place
as a result of worldwide corporate interest. Beyond cruise control
and blind-spot detection, AI is advancing to fully autonomous
capabilities.

Vehicles are being taught to run independently using Deep

Reinforcement Learning (DRL), a form of machine learning. The role
of Artificial Intelligence is to make predictions in planning the route
with possible static and dynamic impediments.

It swerves corresponding to the neighboring vehicles and other

unforeseeable circumstances. Simultaneous Localization and
Mapping (SLAM) technology enables this with real-time sensor-
based orientation to the environment.

Internet of Things (IoT)

The convergence of AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) creates a
plethora of opportunities for developing smarter home appliances
that operate with minimal human intervention. While IoT is
concerned with devices interacting with the internet, AI assists
these devices in learning from data.

Artificial Intelligence is important in unlocking the power of data

collected by IoT devices via sensors. Learnings from this data over
multiple iterations improve the ability of IoT devices to respond to
human stimuli and requirements.

Artificial Intelligence is the backbone of tremendous technological

growth. The role of Artificial Intelligence is crucial in today’s world
as it has already mended the daily life of commoners with it.
Artificial Intelligence could be a lucrative field in the future with
booming job opportunities.
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2. Understanding Ethics :

What is AI ethics?

Intended audience and existing government guidance The

following guidance is designed to outline values, principles, and
guidelines to assist department and delivery leads in ensuring that
they develop and deploy AI ethically, safely, and responsibly. It is
designed to complement and supplement the Data Ethics Framework.
The Data Ethics Framework is a practical tool that should be used in
any project initiation phase. AI ethics A remarkable time of human
promise has been ushered in by the convergence of the ever-
expanding availability of big data, the soaring speed and stretch of
cloud computing platforms, and the advancement of increasingly
sophisticated machine learning algorithms. This brave new digitally
interconnected world is delivering rapid gains in the power of AI to
better society. Innovations in AI are already dramatically improving
the provision of essential social goods and services from healthcare,
education, and transportation to food supply, energy, and
environmental management. These bounties are, in fact, likely just
the start. Because AI and machine learning systems organically
improve with the enlargement of access to data and the growth of
computing power, they will only become more effective and useful as
the information age continues to develop apace. It may not be long
before AI technologies become gatekeepers for the advancement of
vital public interests and sustainable human development. This
prospect that progress in AI will help humanity to confront some of its
most urgent challenges is exciting, but legitimate worries still
abound. As with any new and rapidly evolving technology, a steep
learning curve means that mistakes and miscalculations will be made
and that both unanticipated and harmful impacts will inevitably
occur. AI is no exception. In order to manage these impacts
responsibly and to direct the development of AI systems toward
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optimal public benefit, you will have to make considerations of AI

ethics and safety a first priority. This will involve integrating
considerations of the social and ethical implications of the design and
use of AI systems into every stage of the delivery of your AI project. It
will also involve a collaborative effort between the data scientists,
product managers, data engineers, domain experts, and delivery
managers on your team to align the development of artificial
intelligence technologies with ethical values and principles that
safeguard and promote the wellbeing of the communities that these
technologies affect. By including a primer on AI ethics with the Guide,
we are providing you with the conceptual resources and practical
tools that will enable you to steward the responsible design and
implementation of AI projects.

These values, principles, and techniques are intended both to

motivate morally acceptable practices and to prescribe the basic
duties and obligations necessary to produce ethical, fair, and safe AI
applications.

Why AI ethics? The field of AI ethics has largely emerged as a

response to the range of individual and societal harms that the
misuse, abuse, poor design, or negative unintended consequences of
AI systems may cause. As a way to orient you to the importance of
building a robust culture of AI ethics, here is a table that represents
some of the most consequential forms that these potential harms may
take:

2.1Potential Harms Caused by AI

Systems Bias and Discrimination

Because they gain their insights from the

existing structures and dynamics of the societies they analyse, data
driven technologies can reproduce, reinforce, and amplify the
patterns of marginalisation, inequality, and discrimination that exist
in these societies. Likewise, because many of the features, metrics,
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and analytic structures of the models that enable data mining are
chosen by their designers, these technologies can potentially replicate
their designers’ preconceptions and biases. Finally, the data samples
used to train and test algorithmic systems can often be insufficiently
representative of the populations from which they are drawing
inferences. This creates real possibilities of biased and discriminatory
outcomes, because the data being fed into the systems is flawed from
the start.

Denial of Individual Autonomy, Recourse, and Rights

When citizens are subject to decisions, predictions, or

classifications produced by AI systems, situations may arise where
such individuals are unable to hold directly accountable the parties
responsible for these outcomes. AI systems automate cognitive
functions that were previously attributable exclusively to accountable
human agents. This can complicate the designation of responsibility
in algorithmically generated outcomes, because the complex and
distributed character of the design, production, and implementation
processes of AI systems may make it difficult to pinpoint accountable
parties. In cases of injury or negative consequence, such an
accountability gap may harm the autonomy and violate the rights of
the affected individuals.

Non-transparent, Unexplainable, or Unjustifiable

Outcomes Many machine learning models generate their

results by operating on high dimensional correlations that are beyond
the interpretive capabilities of human scale reasoning. In these cases,
the rationale of algorithmically produced outcomes that directly affect
decision subjects remains opaque to those subjects. While in some
use cases, this lack of explainability may be acceptable, in some
applications, where the processed data could Understanding Artificial
Intelligence Ethics and Safety 5 harbour traces of discrimination,
bias, inequity, or unfairness, the opaqueness of the model may be
deeply problematic.
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2.1 Invasions of Privacy

Threats to privacy are posed by AI systems both as a result of

their design and development processes, and as a result of their
deployment. As AI projects are anchored in the structuring and
processing of data, the development of AI technologies will frequently
involve the utilisation of personal data. This data is sometimes
captured and extracted without gaining the proper consent of the
data subject or is handled in a way that reveals (or places under risk
the revelation of) personal information. On the deployment end, AI
systems that target, profile, or nudge data subjects without their
knowledge or consent could in some circumstances be interpreted as
infringing upon their ability to lead a private life in which they are
able to intentionally manage the transformative effects of the
technologies that influence and shape their development. This sort of
privacy invasion can consequently harm a person’s more basic right
to pursue their goals and life plans free from unchosen influence.

Isolation and Disintegration of Social Connection

While the capacity of AI systems to curate individual experiences and to

personalise digital services holds the promise of vastly improving
consumer life and service delivery, this benefit also comes with
potential risks. Excessive automation, for example, might reduce the
need for human-to-human interaction, while algorithmically enabled
hyper-personalisation, by limiting our exposure to worldviews
different from ours, might polarise social relationships. Well-ordered
and cohesive societies are built on relations of trust, empathy, and
mutual understanding. As AI technologies become more prevalent, it
is important that these relations be preserved.

Unreliable, Unsafe, or Poor-QualityOutcomes

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Irresponsible data management, negligent design and production

processes, and questionable deployment practices can, each in their
own ways, lead to the implementation and distribution of AI systems
that produce unreliable, unsafe, or poor-quality outcomes. These
outcomes can do direct damage to the wellbeing of individual persons
and the public welfare. They can also undermine public trust in the
responsible use of societally beneficial AI technologies, and they can
create harmful inefficiencies by virtue of the dedication of limited
public resources to inefficient or even detrimental AI technologies.

3. Why Ethics in AI? Why Now?

We have a question of how to develop codes of ethics in artificial

intelligence. But why look at this now? Hardly a day goes by when
there is not a prominent media story about the risks and benefits of
artificial intelligence. Alongside accounts of the technological promise
of AI are warnings about its perils. Even those who herald a glorious
future with AI often paint a picture of profound social and individual
change. But should we be worried? And if so, what should be we
worried about in particular? And precisely how worried should we be?
For one obvious feature of AI is its broad nature and manifold
applications. There is also some problem even in defining it, for it’s
often been observed that a technological capacity is heralded as AI
until it’s in place, then, as John McCarthy, the computer scientist
who coined the term ‘artificial intelligence’, put it, ‘as soon as it
works, no one calls it AI anymore’ (Vardi 2012). The borderline
between what counts as AI proper and other forms of technology can
be blurred. Some AI systems are so embedded within technology that
they are assumed and almost invisible. This also means that it’s hard
or impossible in many cases to say which ethical and other value
issues are presented by AI per se, and which by other features of
technology. AI is already with us; many applications are fast
developing and will be with us in the near to medium term. It is a
disputed question when other even more advanced forms of AI
including superintelligence will be here, if ever. Many consider that
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the emergence of super intelligence is an inevitability; there are the

usual disputes about how long it will be before it is with us, as well as
disputes about whether we should welcome its arrival, and if so, why.
Philosophical and technical disputes converge, in the debates about
whether we will ever develop AI which has consciousness and which
is sufficiently complex, and in the right ways, to merit our moral
concerns and protection. AI may involve robotics of varying
complexity; it may involve the manipulation of vast amounts of data;
it may involve machine learning. It may involve how we relate to
others; it may involve how as individuals we think, remember and
reason. It may have implications for the organisation of the labour
market; it may involve how we trade; who has access to information;
and how. It has implications for the economy, for politics, for culture.
It has implications for those who directly use AI, such as those who
use a robot butler; it has implications for those more remote, as for
example when an algorithm developed by machine learning helps
makes public policy decisions, or unemployment attributable to the
use of AI means a worker can no longer afford to pay their child’s
music teacher. Artificial intelligence may be applied in many very
different areas, and in different ways within the same area. In
medicine, AI may be involved in computerised diagnosis of individual
patients, or in algorithms to analyse vast amounts of data from
thousands or millions of patients to understand the nature of disease
and health. It may be involved in patient consultations and even
therapy sessions with online or robotic responses. Robotic assistance
with surgery can involve AI, for complex and delicate operations. It
may be involved in remote monitoring of health, in mobile technology
that gives patients information about their own conditions. It may be
involved in nursing and care, with robotic assistants or companions.
Robots are being used to assist people with autism to develop social
skills. Robotic pets are being developed to provide companionship and
mental stimulation to patients with dementia. Robotic limbs are being
developed, as well as devices to enable patients with locked in
syndrome and other similar conditions to communicate. Machinery
increasingly involves AI. Autopilots include elements of AI, and
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autonomous vehicles are imminently set for widespread use. The

‘internet of things’ connects household gadgets and other items using
AI. Commerce involves AI, from automated trading agents in the stock
market, to algorithms which tailor online advertising or sort the
prices of airline tickets, both for buyers and for sellers. The use of
robotics in manufacturing is long established, and capabilities are
increasing. AI is moving into performing work that previously required
not just manual skills but intellectual skills, as in legal research and
accounting. Teaching also faces inroads from AI. AI may even be used
in creative endeavours, such in writing literature; it’s already being
used in the composition of music. There will hence be many different
and complex debates to be had about the perils and benefits of AI and
its applications. How then, should we think about developing any
codes of ethics for AI?

4. Ethical Considerations of AI:

The legal and ethical issues that confront society due to Artificial
Intelligence (AI) include privacy and surveillance, bias or
discrimination, and potentially the philosophical challenge is the role
of human judgment. Concerns about newer digital technologies
becoming a new source of inaccuracy and data breaches have arisen
as a result of its use. Mistakes in the procedure or protocol in the
field of healthcare can have devastating consequences for the patient
who is the victim of the error. Because patients come into contact
with physicians at moments in their lives when they are most
vulnerable, it is crucial to remember this.
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There is a continuous debate regarding whether AI “fits within

existing legal categories or whether a new category with its special
features and implications should be developed.” The application of AI
in clinical practice has enormous promise to improve healthcare, but
it also poses ethical issues that we must now address. To fully
achieve the potential of AI in healthcare, four major ethical issues
must be addressed:

1. Informed consent to use data,

2. Safety and transparency

3. Algorithmic fairness and biases, and

4. Data privacy are all important factors to consider

Whether AI systems may be considered legal is not only a

legal one but also a politically contentious one (Resolution of the
European Parliament, 16 February 2017). The aim is to help
policymakers ensure that the moral demanding situations raised by
enforcing AI in healthcare settings are tackled proactively. The
limitation of algorithmic transparency is a concern that has
dominated most legal discussions on artificial intelligence. The rise of
AI in high-risk situations has increased the requirement for
accountable, equitable, and transparent AI design and governance.
The accessibility and comprehensibility of information are the two
most important aspects of transparency. Information about the
functionality of algorithms is frequently deliberately made difficult to
obtain.Our capacity to trace culpability back to the maker or operator
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is allegedly threatened by machines that can operate by unfixed rules

and learn new patterns of behavior. The supposed “ever-widening”
divide is a cause for alarm, as it threatens “both the moral framework
of society and the foundation of the liability idea in law.” The use of AI
may leave us without anyone to hold accountable for any sort of
damage done. The extent of danger is unknown, and the use of
machines will severely limit our ability to assign blame and take
ownership of the decision-making Modern computing approaches can
hide the thinking behind the output of an Artificial Intelligent System
(AIS), making meaningful scrutiny impossible. Therefore, the
technique through which an AIS generates its outputs is “opaque.” A
procedure used by an AIS may be so sophisticated that for a non-
technically trained clinical user, it is effectively concealed while
remaining straightforward to understand for a techie skilled in that
area of computer science.AISs, like IBM's Watson for oncology, are
meant to support clinical users and hence directly influence clinical
decision-making. The AIS would then evaluate the information and
recommend the patient's care. The use of AI to assist clinicians in the
future could change clinical decision-making and, if adopted, create
new stakeholder dynamics. The future scenario of employing AIS to
help clinicians could revolutionize clinical decision-making and, if
embraced, create a new healthcare paradigm. Clinicians (including
doctors, nurses, and other health professionals) have a stake in the
safe roll-out of new technologies in the clinical setting.The scope of
emerging ML-HCAs in terms of what they intend to achieve, how they
might be built, and where they might be used is very broad. ML-HCAs
range from entirely self-sufficient synthetic intelligence diabetic
retinopathy prognosis in primary care settings, to non-self-sufficient
death forecasts, to manual coverage and resource allocation (25).
Researchers ought to describe how those outputs can be included in
the research, along with predictions. This information is essential to
setting up the cost of the scientific trial and guiding scientific
research.
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5. Current Initiatives in AI and Ethics

There are so many initiatives currently underway concerning the

ethical, social and legal aspects of AI that it would be a project in
itself to list them all. Here I simply indicate examples of activities
from across diverse categories. There are of course academics from
different disciplinary approaches working across many universities,
including dedicated centres, such as the Leverhulme Centre for the
Future of Intelligence at Cambridge and the One Hundred Year Study
of AI (AI100) at Stanford University. Such centres may get funding
from a variety of sources. As well as projects explicitly examining
ethical issues in AI, there are also AI projects which themselves
incorporate ethical objectives. These projects show an awareness of
the potential problems of AI. For example, OpenAI aims to produce
open source AI code under the belief that this is the best way forward
to combat possibly malicious use of AI. The Machine Intelligence
Research Institute (MIRI) states its aim as ‘aligning advanced AI with
human interests’. Large and smaller corporations also have
initiatives, such as the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit
People and Society, with collaboration from Amazon, DeepMind,
Facebook, Google, IBM, and Microsoft (https://www.
partnershiponai.org/); and the non-profit initiative AI Austin with
collaboration between university, City Council and business
(https://www.ai-austin.org/). There’s also work by individuals in the
professions, such as research examining bias in AI recruitment and
the development of apps to investigate bias in algorithms (Clark
2016). Work by government agencies is also underway, such as the
White House Report on the Future of Artificial Intelligence (Executive
Office of the President 2016) and a draft report on robotics and law by
the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Union (Directorate-
General for Internal Policies 2016). Such governmental work tends to
focus on wider societal issues such as employment, funding and
economics, which naturally have ethical implications. There is work
by professional bodies such as the IEEE’s Standards Association
Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in the Design of
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Autonomous Systems, which has a large number of strands of

investigation motivated by their byline, ‘Values By Design.’ This is an
ongoing project to produce both industry standards and discussion
documents on various topics (http://standards.ieee.org/develop/
indconn/ec/autonomous_systems.html). There’s work by research
funding councils such as the Engineering and Physical Science
Research Council (EPSRC)’s Principles of Robotics which was
produced in 2011 and designed to stimulate discussion (Boden et al.
2011). There is also work by special interest and pressure groups
from the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, whose remit is obvious from
the name (https://www. stopkillerrobots.org/), to the #HellNoBarbie
campaign fighting against Hello 1.2 Current Initiatives in AI and
Ethics 3 Barbie and other children’s toys which can transmit and
analyse children’s conversations remotely (Taylor and Michael 2016).
There are projects funded by non-profit organisations, such as our
project, which is funded, along with 34 other projects, with an AI
grant awarded by the Future of Life Institute. The Future of Life
Institute held a 5 day workshop in January 2017 at Asilomar in
California, during which time they drew up a set of Asilomar AI
Principles.

6 .Ethical Issues with our relationship with artificial Entities:

This chapter is about the ethics of our relationships with artificial

entities—bots, robots, and other computational systems created to
interact with us as if they were sentient and autonomous individuals.
They may be embodied as robots or exist only in software; some are
clearly artificial while others are indistinguishable, at least under
certain conditions, from human beings. When are such interactions
helpful or harmful? How do our relationships with computational
entities change our relationships with other human beings? When
does it matter if we interact with a machine or a human, and why?
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There Are Three Ethical issues with our relationship with artificial
Entities:

They are

1. Ethics of Our Relationship with the Seemingly Sentient.

2. Ethics of Creating Seemingly Sentient Entities

3. Sentient Entities as Social Mirror

1. Ethics of Our Relationship with the Seemingly Sentient:

The big-eyed, round-bodied artificial assistant that sits on our counter,

playing music and telling jokes, seems disarmingly innocuous; if we
think of it as having intentions, they are to please us. But when we
imagine an actually sentient, conscious artificial being and its goals
and intentions, the narrative tends to darken. To understand why, we
need to turn to another mental quality—intelligence. Vernacular
Western thought pictures the world as hierarchical, with humans on
top due to our superior intelligence. This intelligence has given us
fantastic power: we build bridges, cities, bombs, and transistors; we
conquer nature with vaccines, dams, and insecticides. Our
intelligence has given us power over all the other animals, which we
have exploited without hesitation. But while our intelligence gives us
the ability to do these things, it is our consciousness—our awareness
of ourselves, our place in the world, and our future—that has
provided the ambition to do so.

2. Ethics of Creating Seemingly Sentient Entities:

We have been focusing thus far on the ethics of our relationships with
artificial entities. We turn now to the process creating these entities,
and in particular, of designing them to seem conscious and aware
when they are not. Here, the ethical questions center on deception.
There is an extensive, and contentious, body of work about the ethics
AD8013 UNIT-1 ETHICS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

of deception. The central questions are: What exactly constitutes a

deception? Are all deceptions ethically wrong—and if not, which ones
are permitted and why? For the purpose of this discussion, I will put
forth some basic definitions and ethical premises, so we can focus on
the new issues artificial entities raise. An act or quality is deceptive if
it is intended to cause the recipient to believe something that is not
true. Intent is key: not every false statement or causing of false belief
is deceptive. If one believes something that is not true, and tells that
untrue thing to others, that is a mistake, not a deception. If one says
something true, but the recipient misconstrues or misinterprets it
that is a misunderstanding, not a deception. Ethical concerns focus
on intentional deceptions. While a mantis that evolved to resemble a
dead leaf is deceptive and this deception harms its predators, it is not
unethical, for the mantis did not choose to deceive. Humans lie
deliberately--and so do some animals; it is a sign of advanced
cognition.

Most people (and philosophers) hold more nuanced, if differing,

views, evaluating the ethics of deceptions by the harm they cause. An
altruistic deception is done at one’s own expense to benefit the other;
a selfish deception is done for one’s own gain and harming the
recipient is an effect but not the goal; a malicious deception is
performed with the goal of harming the recipient. In an ethical
calculus of deception, one might argue that altruistic deceptions are
ethical, and ones that cause harm should be assessed based on the
amount of harm caused and the moral standing of the various
parties. A lie to a would-be mass shooter that results in his capture
and saves many lives is by narrow definition a malicious lie, but most
people would agree that it was ethical.

An active and growing field of research seeks to understand

how to design technologies that influence people and compel them to
conform and obey. Robots that “use human-like gazing behavior” are
known to be persuasive—and become even more so if gestures are
added. If a robot does something that induces gratitude, “the norm of
reciprocity compels people to return a favor. People conform when
faced with “active peer pressure” from a group of robots, and “robots
have enough authority to pressure participants, even if they protest,
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to continue a tedious task for a substantial amount of time.” The

published research cites laudable goals as potential applications; the
technology will help the user stick to a diet, follow crucial directions,
or use environmentally responsible products. Yet there is nothing
that ensures that these powerful techniques will always be used so
benevolently.

3. Sentient Entities as Social Mirror:

The big-eyed, round-bodied artificial assistant that sits on our

counter, playing music and telling jokes, seems disarmingly
innocuous; if we think of it as having intentions, they are to please
us. But when we imagine an actually sentient, conscious artificial
being and its goals and intentions, the narrative tends to darken. To
understand why, we need to turn to another mental quality—
intelligence. Vernacular Western thought pictures the world as
hierarchical, with humans on top due to our superior intelligence.
This intelligence has given us fantastic power: we build bridges,
cities, bombs, and transistors; we conquer nature with vaccines,
dams, and insecticides. Our intelligence has given us power over all
the other animals, which we have exploited without hesitation. But
while our intelligence gives us the ability to do these things, it is our
consciousness—our awareness of ourselves, our place in the world,
and our future—that has provided the ambition to do so.

So long as the machine is merely intelligent, cleverly solving

very difficult problems— problems far too complex for a mere human
intelligence to solve—it does not pose an existential threat to us. It
solves the problems simply because that’s what it automatically,
mindlessly does, much like a bacterium reverses course away from an
obstacle. But if that machine somehow becomes sentient, with
preferences and the drive to achieve them—or conscious, with a sense
of self and of the future, the ingredients for ambition—then it is
deeply threatening to us.

Samuel Butler voiced this fear in his 1872 novel Erewhon:

“The machines were ultimately destined to supplant the race of man,
and to become instinct with a vitality as different from, and superior
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to, that of animals, as animal to vegetable life.” To prevent this

destiny, the people of Erewhon destroyed all machines and banned
their manufacture56. Karel Capek introduced the word “robot” in
R.U.R, his 1920 play in which the robots, provoked by long
mistreatment, rise in rebellion and ultimately annihilates the human
race. In the 1967 short story “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream,”
Harlan Ellison describes a world in which humanity has been made
nearly extinct by intelligent machines that had been programmed to
wage war; the few humans that remain are tormented by the sadistic
and now conscious AIs. Today, the fear that the machines we make
will supplant us echoes in warnings not only from science fiction
writers and technology critics, but from scientists and engineers
them. Physicist Stephen Hawking warned that “The development of
full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race”.
Along similar lines, inventor Elon Musk has said “If AI has a goal and
humanity just happens to be in the way, it will destroy humanity as a
matter of course without even thinking about it.” It is not certain that
a machine can ever become sentient or conscious; even if it could, it
is far from known by what process or—dystopian terrors aside—what
sort of being it will be. All the conscious beings we know are living
creatures, who evolved over millions of years through a process that
favoured reproductive survival. A machine consciousness would be
vastly different, in ways we cannot predict.