Unit 6 - Computer Ethics and Machine Ethics Flashcards
Fried draws a distinction between understanding privacy as intrinsically valuable (an end-in-itself) and as instrumentally valuable (a means-to-an-end). Explain this distinction with respect to the values of “wealth” and “happiness.” Do you think privacy is better characterized as intrinsically valuable or instrumentally valuable? Explain your answer.
Intrinsic value and instrumental value can be usefully illustrated and contrasted through the values of wealth and happiness. Wealth could be considered an instrumental value as gaining wealth will help a person achieve desirable ends like financial freedom, status, and greater ability to pursue other pleasures or drives. Happiness on the other hand is intrinsic because it is an end in itself. Happiness does not bring one closer to any other end either then itself, it is the destination.
Privacy is better characterized as an instrumental value because it always achieves something other then itself such as: a freedom from others, an ability to be exchanged it for monetary or self-expressive needs, and peace. While it does contain elements of intrinsic value as it does in-itself provide a sense of satisfaction through peace and anonymity, it cannot be categorized as simply intrinsic and is therefore better considered to be instrumental. Additionally, privacy is always to or in relation to someone else (Fried, 1970)
Fried does not think that privacy fits neatly into the category of either being intrinsically or instrumentally valuable, but he does favor a certain version of the instrumentalist conception. Explain his instrumentalist conception of the value of privacy by focusing upon his account of what kinds of morally desirable ends are only made possible by privacy.
Fried argues that privacy is instrumental in the most fundamental ends such as: respect, love, friendship, and trust. Without privacy, these ends are inconceivable and require the context or promise of privacy for their existence. A threat to privacy is therefore a threat to our integrity. Privacy is the moral capital which we exchange information about ourselves in intimate relationships and is the mutual respect we give each other in close relationships. Control of information allows for degrees of intimacy. A person must be able to break trust to be trusted, one who is constantly surveilanced does not feel trusted and therefore cannot learn trust.
Fried describes privacy as the control we have over information about ourselves. He also notes that it acts as a defensive mechanism against public reprimand of our tastes or opinions. Presenting privacy as a liberty allows it to be confiscated for other liberties. Privacy allows us to define ourselves to others and to define ourselves.
What reasons does Fried provide for arguing that probationary monitoring can be morally justifiable while electronic monitoring of the general public is not?
Fried argues that probationary monitoring can be morally justifiable because it allows the release of people who would otherwise remain in prison (which is much more intrusive and less private), the prisoner can object to monitoring and remain in prison or later released on parole without monitoring, and would facilitate the rehabilitation of those being monitored.
Privacy like other liberties, may be taken away to protect the liberties of others such as in the case of imprisonment or probation.
Although privacy can be understood as a liberty it is more then that as it is integral to intimate relationships. Monitoring will therefore drastically affect the general publics ability to be intimate, engage in actual trustful relationships, and express humanity. Although the person on probation faces the same consequences, they make this choice in hopes of rehabilitation and will hopefully learn from these experiences.
Name and explain three reasons that Fried provides for thinking that electronic monitoring of the general public is morally problematic.
Monitoring would ruin intimacy because any intimate disclosure would be monitored thereby making disclosure non-exclusive
Constant monitoring deprives the person of engaging in actual trust, as they could be held accountable for any dishonest action.
Because a person is inhibited from disclosing that which is intimate, the person will be less able to express their humanity.
Consider the following passage from Fried’s article:
“It is my thesis that privacy is not just one possible means among others to insure some other value, but that it is necessarily related to ends and relations of the most fundamental sort: respect, love, friendship, and trust. Privacy is not merely a good technique for furthering these fundamental relations; rather without privacy they are simply inconceivable. They require a context of privacy or the possibility of privacy for their existence. To make clear the necessity of privacy as a context for respect, love, friendship, and trust is to bring out also why a threat to privacy seems to threaten our very integrity as persons.” (Fried, p. 140)
In one paragraph explain Fried’s thesis to someone who has not read Fried’s article. In a following paragraph explain why you agree or disagree with Fried’s thesis.
Fried makes this statement because he argues that intimate relations require intimate disclosure, trust requires being trusted which is only achievable if the person can violate the trust, and respect is reciprocated through respect of others intimate privations. Because all of this can only be achieved with a person holding the freedom to their own disclosure (which is essentially their integrity) removal of privacy would seriously harm peoples character and relations, which of course would be inhibited through monitoring.
I agree because the expression (or non-expression) of a person very much is that person. It is common for people to express themselves differently among different people and is often a tasteful approach to pragmatism. If the audience was skewed by monitoring, this would severely confuse expression and would make sharing an uncomfortable and awkward act for many. Constant surveillance would make expression of humanity feel very conditional as some intimate characteristics would always resist expression. Because expression is largely dependent on social relations (intimate and acquainted), a person has the right to to keep that which is intimate, intimate.
Apply Fried’s analysis of the significance of privacy to the Facebook case study that opened Unit 6. On what grounds might Fried allege that Facebook’s data sharing “threatened our very integrity as persons”? How might a Facebook representative respond to such an allegation? Explain, with reasons, whose side you would defend, and present possible alternatives for mitigating Fried’s concerns.
Fried might allege that facebook violated the integrity of persons by sharing their information without their consent, thereby denying the persons right to their own expression and therefore their integrity.
A facebook representative may argue that the person forfeited their rights to privacy when they shared information online and engaged with the platform in the first place. If the person was willing to express themselves publicly on the platform no integrity was lost because the person already chose to express their information openly.
I would likely defend Fried as even though the person expressed themselves publicly they likely did so with the intention of sharing with their friends on facebook. Other alternatives to Fried’s argument which do not rely on the fundamentals of a persons integrity could argue that the persuasion used on facebook was manipulative, that the manipulative form was transgressive of democracy, and that facebook violated the trust of the users by sharing information in a way that was not intended by the users.
What are three reasons that Anderson and Anderson provide for the importance of studying machine ethics?
- There are ethical ramification’s to what machines do. Machines will become more intelligent and further the grow the ability to harm us, so it is important we design an ethics for them.
- To overcome the fear of AI we must instill a reliable ethical behavior in machines.
- The study of machine ethics can advance the study of ethical theory by forcing the real world application of theory and by providing a means of recording and researching the application of ethics.
Why do Anderson and Anderson think that machine ethics “makes philosophy honest”?
Because ethics must be made computable for it to make clear how agents ought to act in moral dilemma’s.
Why do Anderson and Anderson reject the theory of Ethical Relativism as a viable approach to machine ethics? Do you agree or disagree with this line of reasoning?
Ethical relativism either individual or societal disallows the critique of others actions (no matter how heinous) because all ethics are relative, thereby nearly being the same as having no ethics at all.
Yes, because saying that all ethics are relative disallows all ethical evaluation thereby making the practice of ethics a complete waste of time. We must discriminate against, reject, and favor some principles over others in the hopes of generating an ethics that is most complete. Also, some actions are clearly always morally unsound, such as senseless murder and rape and could not be discriminated against in a ethically relativist framework.
In two to three sentences, explain Act Utilitarianism. What three reasons do Anderson and Anderson provide for claiming that AI machines have advantages over human beings in following Act Utilitarianism? Provide an example to help illuminate your explanation.
Act utilitarianism argues that the rightness and wrongness of an act is solely determined by the consequences of the act itself. The best act is that which results in the greatest net good consequences and is often referred to as moral arithmetic.
- Where humans do not tend to do strict moral arithmetic and instead give rough estimations of moral action, machines could and would do the moral arithmetic. Thereby making machines less likely to make moral mistakes.
- Humans put special importance on themselves when making moral decisions however, machines could remain impartial and therefore make more objective moral decisions.
- Humans cannot consider all alternatives where a machine could. (they argue that AI’s following act utilitarianism could be consultants to humans)
A person deciding which charity to donate too could not do the arithmetic necessary to know which charity would produce the most happiness, if they had vested interest such as a christain donating to a christain charity this might skew their judgement, and they might not consider some alternatives such as donating such and such percentage to each or raising awareness for one in another form. Whereas a machine could hypothetically break this situation down into
a mathematic equation and make a non-subjective choice.
How do Anderson and Anderson respond to the criticism that machines cannot be ethical because they do not have any of the following: (i) free will or (ii) consciousness or (iii) emotions? Explain their response to each of these three criticisms, and critically evaluate their response to one of these points by asking yourself whether you agree or disagree with their response.
They argue against free will and consciousness by demonstrating that while normally sentience is required to justify ethical behaviors, a machine could simply cite the ethical principle that lead to its actions.
Some cite emotions as necessary so one can be aware of the others feelings when deciding to act. However, a machine could learn to take in others emotions without being emotional, and would benefit by not getting carried away (like humans) with their emotions.
Of the ethical theories that Anderson and Anderson consider, which account do they believe is “the best approach to ethical theory” (p. 18)? Explain this approach and present two leadings challenges that this approach faces.
Anderson and Anderson argue that act utilitarianism may be the best ethical approach to machine ethics because a machine could complete complex moral arithmetic fast, do the moral arithmetic without giving themselves special importance unlike humans, and have the ability to consider more alternatives then humans.
The problems with this utilitarian approach is: it could violate human rights by sacrificing one being for the greater net good, and could conflict with our notion of justice and what people deserve because rightness and wrongness is dependent on future actions where peoples justice is determined by past actions.
Anderson and Anderson conclude that “of the many challenges facing those who choose to work in the area of machine ethics, foremost is the need for a dialogue between ethicists and researchers in artificial intelligence” (p. 25). What do they think this interdisciplinary dialogue should entail? What benefits can be gained from such a dialogue?
This dialogue would be centered around how to best install ethics in machines.
AI researchers need to convince the general public that ethical machines can be created. They may benefit by gaining continued support for working on AI.
Ethicists have the chance to clarify or even discover the fundamental principles of ethics
