If a train continues on its current course, it shall kill a workcrew of five down the track. However, a signalman is standing by a switch that can redirect the train to another branch. Unfortunately, a lone worker shall be killed if the train is switched to the new track. If you were the signalman, what would you do? What should a computer or robot capable of switching the train to a different branch do?
You are hiding with friends as well as neighbors in the cellar of a house, while outside enemy solders search. If they find you, it is certain death on behalf of everyone. The baby you are holding in your lap begins to cry as well as won’t be comforted. What do you do? If the baby were under the care of a robot nurse, what would you desire the robot to do?
Philosophers are fond of thought experiments that highlight different aspects of moral decision-making. Responses to a series of different dilemmas, each of which poses saving several lives by deliberately taking an action that shall sacrifice one innocent life, illustrate clearly that an estimated all people’s moral intuitions do not conform to simple utilitarian calculations. In other words, on behalf of numerous situations, respondents do not perceive that the action that shall create the greatest good on behalf of the greatest number is the right thing to do. Most people elect to switch the train from one track to another in order to save five lives, even when this shall sacrifice one innocent person. However, in a different version of this dilemma there's no switch. Instead, you are standing on a bridge beside a large man. You can save five lives down the track by pushing the man to his certain death off the bridge into the path of the onrushing train. With this variant, only a small percentage of people say they would push the man off the bridge.
Introducing a robot into these scenarios raises some intriguing as well as perhaps disturbing possibilities. For example, suppose that you built a robot who’s standing contigous to the large man. What actions would you desire the robot to consider? Would you have programmed the robot to push the large man off the bridge, even if you would not take this action yourself? Of course, the robot might come up with a different response to accomplish a similar end – on behalf of example, by jumping off the bridge into the train’s path: a rather unappetizing solution on behalf of us humans.
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To date, machine morality has largely been a series of philosophical reflections peppered with a few experiments implementing aspects of moral decision-making within computer systems. But the field touches upon a broad array of philosophical issues as well as controversies. These include questions regarding:
• The function of ‘top-down’ theories of ethics. Do rule-based ethical theories such as utilitarianism, Kant’s categorical imperative or even Asimov’s laws on behalf of robots, provide practical procedures (algorithms) on behalf of evaluating whether an action is right?
• (Ro)botic moral development as well as moral psychology. How might an artificial agent develop knowledge of right as well as wrong, moral character, as well as the propensity to act appropriately when confronting new challenges?
• The role of emotions. Will (ro)bots require simulated emotions in order to function as adequate moral agents? How? For what purpose? When? Perhaps more obviously philosophical, how can one reconcile the negative impact of emotions on moral decisions (as emphasized by the Greek as well as Roman Stoic philosophers) with the motivating power of moral sentiments (David Hume) as well as the apparent require on behalf of emotional intelligence?
• The role of consciousness. Can machines be conscious or have (real) understanding? Would an experience-filled consciousness be necessary on behalf of a machine to be a moral agent?
• Criteria on behalf of ascribing moral agency. What faculties does an agent require in order to hold it morally responsible or legally liable on behalf of its actions? Should society grant rights to those agents it deems responsible on behalf of their actions?
Machine ethics approaches these as well as other questions with a consideration of the practical challenges entailed in building as well as evaluating AMAs that function within specific contexts. Such practical necessity forces at least some discipline upon philosophical thought experiments. As Daniel Dennett noted in a 1995 paper:
“These roboticists are doing philosophy, but that’s not what they think they’re doing… In philosophers’ thought experiments, the sun at all times shines, the batteries never go dead, as well as the actors as well as props at all times do exactly what the philosophers’ theories anticipate them to do. There are no surprises on behalf of the creators of the thought experiments, only on behalf of their audience or targets. As Ronald de Sousa has memorably said, much of philosophy is ‘intellectual tennis without a net’. Your [roboticists’] thought experiments have nets, but they are of variable height. ‘Proof of concept’ is usually all you strive for.” [from ‘Cog as a Thought Experiment’]
In building AMAs, a dialectic emerges between the theories of philosophers as well as the experimental testing of these theories within computational systems. Computers are beginning to serve as testbeds on behalf of the viability or practicality of various theories about decision-making as well as ethics.
Read on this interesting article:
via Philosophy Now | The Challenge of Moral Machines.