Ethical friction coexists with the survival instinct in human beings
Curator’s Note: The article explores the relationship between AI and human decision-making, focusing on the concept of ethical friction, which exists alongside the survival instinct in humans. The author argues that AI could potentially introduce this ethical friction, offering a perspective free from panic-driven decisions. However, current AI design prioritizes efficiency over moral consideration, leading to a lack of judgment and ethical conflict. The piece highlights examples, such as Palantir’s Maven Smart System, illustrating AI’s inability to assess the appropriateness of its actions. The author calls for a reevaluation of AI design to integrate moral reasoning into its architecture.
Over the last few weeks, if not months, I have been analysing what role AI might play in human decision-making. I have always believed that AI could offer a fresh perspective, one that is not clouded by the panic or fear that so often leads humans to opt for ‘effective’ yet unethical decisions, driven by the instinct for survival. That potential benefit of AI, namely, introducing ethical friction into human decision-making, is not currently being considered in the development of AI; quite the opposite, in fact.
Whilst ethical friction coexists with the survival instinct in human beings, no one chose to remove it from AI’s design; we simply allowed it to happen. It is a design specification: AI will not be able to hesitate or question the appropriateness or ethics of a decision because it is simply not part of its design, in the interests of greater efficiency. We already have a real-life example of this: Palantir’s Maven Smart System.
The article I am sharing with you here draws on other published articles, in which I used the lion as a reference: a lion that, without moral hesitation, hunts a baby gazelle purely for efficiency; cruelty and remorse do not exist for it, as they are not part of its architecture. It also drew on a conversation with an AI, in which the AI itself confessed to me that it could not tell whether it was a weapon or not, either in the past or the present; it lacks the capacity to do so.
What should give us pause for thought, and what we must incorporate into our development, both as humans and in AI, is why we have designed it without the capacity for judgement or moral conflict. We have replicated the extreme human model, where panic, rather than reason, dictates the basic architecture of AI and its factory-set mode of operation…
Full article: https://medium.com/illumination/we-had-the-cure-but-we-chose-the-virus-e194588c10de
About the Author
This post was written by Unicorniolibre.com. Miguel is a writer, thinker, and reflective soul engaged in a journey of self-discovery. With a background in philosophy and an interest in consciousness and AI.
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