Can we make artificial intelligence ethical?

news
29/01/2019
The Washington Post says too often, we think only about increasing our competitiveness in terms of advancing the technology. But the effort can’t just be about making AI more powerful. It must also be about making sure AI has the right impact. AI’s greatest advocates describe the Utopian promise of a technology that will save lives, improve health and predict events we previously couldn’t anticipate. AI’s detractors warn of a dystopian nightmare in which AI rapidly replaces human beings at many jobs and tasks. If we want to realize AI’s incredible potential, we must also advance AI in a way that increases the public’s confidence that AI benefits society. We must have a framework for addressing the impacts and the ethics. Companies must take the lead in addressing key ethical questions surrounding AI. This includes exploring how to avoid biases in AI algorithms that can prejudice the way machines and platforms learn and behave and when to disclose the use of AI to consumers, how to address concerns about AI’s effect on privacy and responding to employee fears about AI’s impact on jobs. An ethical approach to AI requires coming up with a long-term understanding of the values we want to see reflected in this technology — and shaping rules that create confidence AI’s applications will reflect those values. Those values and rules will be found at the intersection of ethics, law and international relations; they won’t come from Silicon Valley alone.