Ethical & Social Implications FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions about the Implications of AI

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Q: I am a University Student at ___ . I am part of an honors seminar that will debate whether or not AI is a threat, or could become a threat to mankind and why.
A: Response by Patrick J. Hayes:

Well, I'm tempted to ask what KIND of a threat is being considered here, and a threat to WHAT exactly? Because the answer must depend on having a little more detail.

To attempt to answer your question at face value, I'd say that AI is certainly not a threat in the usual science-fiction sense. This is the imaginary scenario in which machines become (or are made) intelligent, and then as a result decide to take over, and (since once one is as smart as a human, to get much smarter is only a matter of buying some extra RAM) the machines will have the upper hand and we humans will all become slaves before we know what has hit us. Some variation of this is a widespread idea in current fiction and even among AI folk, but it is utter nonsense. It rests on a simple mistake: the identification of intelligence with ambition. Human beings evolved, and so, like all animals, we are imbued with a passionate will to dominate or succeed in competition with other living things, a will which might be paraphrased as the will to survive or the will to live. (I don't mean to imply that mankind is red in tooth and claw, only that it is unusual to find a human being who is totally disinterested in their own survival.) However, this will to live isn't identical with intelligence, and one can imagine a very intelligent artifact with a deep intellectual capacity which is totally uninterested in surviving or taking over or controlling human life or destiny. In fact all the AI systems that have ever been built have no particular interest in social or biological domination, yet some of them are undeniably very smart at what they do. Chess-players play intelligent chess, AI diagnostic systems do intelligent diagnosis, etc. etc... Just making them smarter isnt going to make them more ambitious. Intelligence, itself, is not synonymous with fitness for survival and still less is it anything particular to do with having a will to live, let along a will to dominate or control human society. So unless people deliberately set out to make something like an artificial Ghengis Kahn, I see no rational reason to suppose that our artifacts will have any particular desire to take us over, any more than the automobiles that we make are likely to start running around by themselves.

Now, this answer might seem naive, if what you mean by "AI" is the creation of something like an artifical superman, since of course human beings do have these ambitions. But thats a basic mistake about AI. The field isnt concerned with making Golems, but creating intelligent artifacts. Some AI people talk about the field as having an ultimate ambition of creating "human-level intelligence" (John McCarthy's phrase). I disagree, myself, but in any case, notice that he says human-level *intelligence*, not human-level ambition or greed or will to conquer or craftiness.

Just in terms of the likely effects of technology, I think that AI is much more likely to be a boon than a threat to humans. In many ways one can best describe AI technology as the development of what my colleague Ken Ford calls 'cognitive prostheses': systems that people can use to amplify their own intellectual capacities; that will do some of their thinking for them, just as our eyeglasses help us see things and our clothes keep us warm. We have developed this theme in some publications in more detail, but the essential point is that such tools actually *empower* people and aid in removing social barriers. To dramatize the point, its worth noting that about a hundred years ago, the ability to do rapid mental arithmetic was considered an impressive intellectual talent, and people who could do it received academic honors. Nowadays a high-school dropout at a supermarket checkout can tell the customer the total charge in a fraction of a second. A barcode scanner and a computer read-out act as a kind of mental amplifier enabling someone to perform a task that, without it, would require greater mental capacity than he could deploy unaided. True, we don't usually say that the supermarket checkout clerk is using this machinery to think with; but ask yourself: who is earning the wages, the human or the computer?

Now, I think that one could say that AI has some threatening aspects, but of a much more subtle and intellectual sort. In some ways, the scientific goal of AI might be described as understanding intelligence (including human intelligence, ultimately) in computational terms. If we do ever achieve such an understanding (we are only at the beginning of this task right now) then we will, I think, as a society, be forced to re-think our view of ourselves and our place in nature. There are some who might find this prospect threatening, as I suspect it will call into question some of our long-held views of ourselves. But this is a very tenuous kind of 'threat'.

Q: Do you think robots should be used as caregivers in the home?
A: Response by Bruce Buchanan:

Robots in the household seem like a very good thing to me, even including some of the duties of home nursing and child care. They need to be smarter and more autonomous than the Rhoomba vacuum cleaner, of course. But there are many jobs that involve monitoring, reminding, and fetching that we now hire low-paid care givers for, which could be performed by robots 24x7, with fewer problems of calling in sick, stealing valuables, and abusing the elderly.

Human caregivers are certainly capable of human empathy in ways that robots are not. But finding enough people of quality for these jobs is a problem. Why not give each of them a team of pretty-capable robots to work one-on-one with nursing home patients or kids for continuous watching & interaction, with the fully capable person checking up on the quality of care? Will robots make mistakes (e.g., allow taking, or even actively giving, the wrong medication)? Sure, but so do human caregivers. Intelligent machines can be programmed to make fewer mistakes than the worst care givers, and maybe no more than the best.

We would all like to be cared for by someone as caring as our own grandmothers, as attentive as our spouses (well, maybe more so), and as knowledgeable as our personal physicians. This just won't happen. So how can we couple the empathy of a good person with the attention and knowledge-processing of a machine? We won't really know until we try various ways.

Q: The question is: Is the Artificial Intelligence a menace to the Human Brain in the near future?
A: Response by Bruce Buchanan:

I believe AI is not a menace to the human brain nor to human society. In order to survive, and to ensure survival of the planet, the human race needs more intelligence. Witness the mess we've made of controlling war, famine, greed, pollution, population growth, and myriad other global problems. Intelligent computers will be capable of thinking through the consequences of our actions and suggesting creative solutions to problems that are too complex for our politicians to solve.

Q: Is there an AI police? I am giving a brief speech on AI for a class project and am trying to find out if there is a singular "governing" body for AI research or if all work is self-policed independently. Suppose I was aware of someone creating an AI without putting any forethought into ethical safeguards. Is there anyone I could report them to? Thanks in advance,

A: No science that I know of has a governing body to police its activities. Nuclear physics, molecular genetics, and AI are among the sciences with the most profound ethical implications, but any part of science that has the potential for benefitting humankind also has the power to do harm.

Science is based on openness. Open, honest publication of results -- and the methods by which the results were obtained -- helps assure everyone that experiments can be replicated and the results are not fabrications. Open discussion of the implications of new research also helps assure everyone that the downside risks of a line of research are tolerable in light of the potential benefits. Every scientist has an obligation to publish for these reasons.

Scientists also have an obligation to publish explanations of their work that is understandable to an educated lay public. By this means, the public and the legislators who represent them, are in a position to make informed decisions about legislation that governs some parts of science. There was recent legislation, for example, prohibiting research on stem cells that used cells not already available. The United Nations tries to limit nuclear proliferation and prohibit develop of enrichment facilities that would allow more countries to manufacture nuclear weapons. The European Union has passed strong laws limiting the use of genetically-modified foods. The current world-wide discussion of global climate change is leading to new laws restricting energy production of various kinds and promoting research on alternative energy sources.

AI is not as mature or well developed as physics and genetics so it is probably premature to ask the US Congress to pass any legislation limiting the uses of intelligent machines. But it is certainly not premature to discuss the implications of having intelligent machines. Science fiction writers have brought those implications to our attention; AI scientists continue to write both technical and non-technical articles for the lay public that provide honest assessments of the strengths and limits of AI, and of future risks and benefits. Many of these articles are collected in the AAAI website www.aaai.org/aitopics under the topic Ethical/Social. I hope you find them useful.

Bruce Buchanan

• Also see our Ethical & Social Implications and SciFi pages, and Student Mail, letter #2.