Ben Byford
AI ethics | freelance web and games designer
“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”
Samuel Johnson
Introducing
Machine Ethics by Ben Byford
Introducing
Machine Ethics by Ben Byford
“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”
Samuel Johnson
Who am I???
How can you even know me?
What does it mean to be me?
How do I even know you're you?
Theory of mind / concious machine
bit.ly/holisticAI
TECH & ETHICS???
Tech Ethics
Data Ethics
AI Ethics
Robo Ethics
Machine Ethics
AGI / Theory of Mind
Singularity / Personhood
Knowledge + Integrity
Machine that stores information
Knowledge + Integrity
Machine that stores and
makes actions on information
Knowledge + Integrity
Humans as proxies to the
lack of ethics in algorithmic actions
Machine that stores and
makes actions on information
Knowledge & Integrity
Machines make ethical actions
Machine Ethics
Theory and implementation of ethical machines
WHY
MACHINE ETHICS???
Caveat:
Moral arbiter,
not a reciever of moral consideration... (yet)
IN WHICH CIRCUMSTANCES???
Velocity
Volume
Resources
Novelty
Working outside of a defined
"safe space"
OR
With the capabilities to
cause harm
HOW???
Top Down
Hybrid
Bottom Up
Implicit ethical agents,
Explicit ethical agents,
Full ethical agents
Ethical theories:
Utilitarianism
Duties
Virtue
Ross' Prima Facie
John Rawls' Veil of Ignorance
PROBLEMS???
Generalisable
definition of ethics
Generalisable
definition of ethics
Transparency
How will we even know if the system
is not transparent?
How much uncertainty do we accept?
Unknown systemic
issues
TODAY &
the FUTURE of Machine Ethics???
Complex discipline
Control Theory, Information Theory, Game Theory, Practical Ethics, Formal ethics, Moral psychology, Philosophy of mind, Computer science, Logic
Context specific
transparent
ethical agents
Good enough.
Where do we put the bar?
“Perhaps interacting with an ethical robot might someday even inspire us to behave more ethically ourselves.”
Anderson, Anderson 2012
Responses to a Critique of
Artificial Moral Agents
Adam Poulsen, Michael Anderson, Susan L. Anderson, Ben Byford,
Fabio Fossa, Erica L. Neely, Alejandro Rosas, Alan Winfield
bit.ly/moralagents
"…ethics must become a central piece for any individual or organisations developing AI."
DigitalCatapult
Machine Intelligence Garage Ethics Committee
chaired by Luciano Floridi
knowledge & Integrity
Yes there's more
"I'm just a
a developer,
a researcher,
a business"
“...its just not good enough to publish your ethics principles”
Projects by IF
“It is impossible to work in information technology without also engaging in social engineering.”
Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget
OECD AI Principles
www.oecd.org/going-digital/ai/principles/
1. Hire me: www.ethicalby.design
1. Hire me: www.ethicalby.design
2. Create an AI governance group:
designers, users, directors, data scientists, allow these people to "own" the process of scrutony for your projects... They're like AI fire wardens.
3. Risk assess your service / product against ethical issues, use this process to put processes and changes into place.
4. Revisit your AI processes, reevalute them and keep up to date with new AI issues.
5. Publicily declare your intent, processes and updates... you don't have to give up your secret source just give us as much as possible to be able to see your doing well.
NOTES
- Finding bias isn't the same as acting on it
- Users - humanise your users by calling them people
- “Be worthy of trust” - sounds virtuous, but how?
- Badges for ethical & technical understandings
- Fight against abstraction
- ...TBA
Introducing Machine Ethics
By Ben Byford
Introducing Machine Ethics
Machine ethics pres for I'll Be Back, Nov 2019
- 150
