Big Guns Want to Make Artificial Intelligence Ethical
January 31, 2017
I read “Apple Joins Research Group for Ethical AI with Fellow Tech Giants.” The write up informed me that:
As artificial intelligence becomes an increasingly powerful force in industry and society, some of the world’s biggest companies are worrying about how the technology can be used ethically, and how the public will perceive its spread. To combat these problems (and others), five tech companies — Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and IBM — set up a research group called the Partnership on AI.
Apple is on the bus.
I don’t want to be skeptical, but there are some outfits actively working on smart software for government use cases. There is, in effect, a shadow business in artificial intelligence and smart software for warfighting, intelligence, and law enforcement.
A prototype autonomous weapon hunts for the enemy. For more images of the device, navigate to this link.
Sure, it’s great that the consumer facing outfits are going to meet and talk about how to keep children and partially informed users of mobile phones from negative uses of smart software. But I had two thoughts flit through my addled goose brain.
What are the outfits listed in the Carahsoft round up of Carahsoft IT solutions for government doing to make sure smart software is ethical. If you are not familiar with Carahsoft’s lists, you can check them out at this link.
Also, there are the US government programs to advance the use of smart software. Some of these ideas are interesting to me, but I am not sure how they will fly in a grade school. Examples include self directing swarms of weaponized mini drones released from an aircraft to autonomous imagery analysis systems which can deploy countermeasures automatically when folks face a threat.
Finally, there are the wizards working at various government research centers. These range from the little known units of consulting companies to university related research organizations.
In short, the notion of making artificial intelligence ethical is an interesting one for commercial enterprises. I wonder if the folks will chit chat about other topics when the members sit down for Philz coffee. There’s nothing like a helpful conversation among publicly traded companies who have a mandate to maximize their revenues.
I don’t want to be a fuddy duddy, but what does “ethics” mean?
Stephen E Arnold, January 31, 2017
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