Lecture 12: Ethics for AI and robotics

Question 1

Explain the two fields of AI/robotics and ethics.

Answer 1

AI Ethics (Ethics for AI/Robotics) is to understand ethical implications in the design of safe, acceptable and ethical robots.

Machine Ethics (AI for robot’s own ethics) is to design machines/robots with intrinsic ethical rules.

Question 2

Explain the three ethics approaches. *

Answer 2

Deontological ethics is the universal ethical rules such as moral law.

Utilitarianism (consequentialism) is the proxy for individual goodness over the community.

Virtue ethics leads a system to reason and discover your own rules (phronesis).

Question 3

What are the potential harms of AI and robotics in regards to ethics?

Answer 3

Bias and discrimination

Denial of individual autonomy

Invasions of privacy

Job losses/changes (for ex: chatgpt can eliminate the need for some jobs)

Question 4

What is Machine Ethics’ main goal? What is an example of Machine Ethics?

Answer 4

To design machines/robots with intrinsic ethical rules

Moor’s Agents is an example. The 4 agents are ethical impact agents, implicit ethical agents, explicit ethical agents, and full ethical agents.

Question 5

What are the three laws of responsible robotics?

Answer 5

A robot may not injure a human being.

A robot must obey orders given by a human.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as it does not conflict with the first two laws.

Question 6

List 3 responsible AI approaches or method, explaining one.

Answer 6

Turing’s Institute’s ethical platform

Responsible research and innovation (RRI)

Ethics by Design

RRI focusses on how will safety be ensured and involves society in science and innovation in the initial processes rather than later.

Question 7

What is Explainable AI (XAI)? How is it used in robotics?

Answer 7

XAI produces transparent and explainable models. It enables human users to understand, trust, and effectively manage AI systems. It involves finding the balance between performance and explainability. In some cases, finding better performance results in complex models.

Question 8

Match each of Moor’s agents to the correct definition:

1. Ethical impact agents
2. Implicity ethical agents
3. Explicity ethical agents
4. Full ethical agents

A. Can make explicit moral judgements and justify them
B. Evaluated for its ethical consequences
C. Designed to avoid unethical outcomes
D. Can reason about ethics

Answer 8

1 B
2 C
3 D
4 A