Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-ckgrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-16T14:39:52.419Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - What Matters to a Machine?

from PART III - ISSUES CONCERNING MACHINE ETHICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2011

By
Drew McDermott
Edited by
Michael Anderson  and
Susan Leigh Anderson
Michael Anderson
Affiliation:
University of Hartford, Connecticut
Susan Leigh Anderson
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Get access

Summary

Why Is Machine Ethics Interesting?

There has recently been a flurry of activity in the area of “machine ethics” [38, 4, 3, 5, 58]. My purpose in this article is to argue that ethical behavior is an extremely difficult area to automate, both because it requires “solving all of AI” and because even that might not be sufficient.

Why is machine ethics interesting? Why do people think we ought to study it now? If we're not careful, the reason might come down to the intrinsic fascination of the phrase “machine ethics.” The title of one recent review of the field is Moral Machines. One's first reaction is that moral machines are to be contrasted with … what? Amoral machines? Immoral machines? What would make a machine ethical or unethical? Any cognitive scientist would love to know the answer to these questions.

However, it turns out that the field of machine ethics has little to say about them. So far, papers in this area can usefully be classified as focusing on one, maybe two, of the following topics:

  1. Altruism: The use of game-theoretic simulations to explore the rationality or evolution of altruism [9, 12].

  2. Constraint: How computers can be used unethically, and how to program them so that it is provable that they do not do something unethical [28, 29], such as violate someone's privacy.

  3. Reasoning: The implementation of theories of ethical reasoning [38, 4] for its own sake, or to help build artificial ethical advisors.

  4. […]

Type
Chapter
Information
Machine Ethics , pp. 88 - 114
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, Irwin. The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates: An Illustrated Biographical History. Science History Publications, 2001.Google Scholar
Ainslie, George. Breakdown of Will. Cambridge University Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amigoni, Francesco and Schiaffonati, Viola. Machine ethics and human ethics: A critical view. In Proceedings of the AAAI 2005 Fall Symposium on Machine Ethics, pages 103–104. AAAI Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Anderson, Michael and Anderson, Susan Leigh. Special Issue on Machine Ethics. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(4), 2006.Google Scholar
Anderson, Michael and Anderson, Susan Leigh. Machine ethics: creating an ethical intelligent agent. AI Magazine, 28(4):15–58, 2007.Google Scholar
Arkin, Ronald C.. Governing lethal behavior: Embedding ethics in a hybrid deliberative/reactive robot architecture. Technical report, GIT-GVU-07–11, Georgia Institute of Technology Mobile Robot Laboratory, 2007.
Armour, Phillip G.. Sarbanes-Oxley and software projects. Comm. ACM, 48(6):15–17, 2005.Google Scholar
Asimov, Isaac. I, Robot. Gnome Press, 1950.Google Scholar
Axelrod, R. and Hamilton, W.D.. The Evolution of Cooperation. Science, 211 (4489): 1390–1396, 1981.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Block, Ned. Troubles with functionalism. In Savage, C. Wade, editor, Perception and Cognition: Issues in the Foundation of Psychology, Minn. Studies in the Phil. of Sci, pages 261–325. 1978. Somewhat revised edition in Ned Block (ed.) Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., vol. 1, pages 268–306, 1980.Google Scholar
Martin, A. Conway. Sensory-perceptual episodic memory and its context: autobiographical memory. Phil. Trans. Royal Society, 356(B):1375–1384, 2001.Google Scholar
Danielson, Peter. Competition among cooperators: Altruism and reciprocity. In Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci, volume 99, pages 7237–7242, 2002.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dennett, Daniel C.. Consciousness Explained. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1991.Google Scholar
Fetzer, James H.. Artificial intelligence: Its Scope and Limits. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetzer, James H.. Computers and Cognition: Why Minds Are Not Machines. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2002.Google Scholar
Floridi, Luciano, editor. The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, Mass., 2004.CrossRef
Fodor, Jerry. The Language of Thought. Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1975.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry G.. Freedom of the will and the concept of a person. J. of Phil, 68:5–20, 1971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frey, Ray and Morris, Chris, editors. Value, Welfare, and Morality. Cambridge University Press, 1993.CrossRef
Gentner, Dedre, Holyoak, Keith J., and Kokinov, Boicho K.. The Analogical Mind: Perspectives from Cognitive Science. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2001.Google Scholar
Ghallab, Malik, Nau, Dana, and Traverso, Paolo. Automated Planning: Theory and Practice. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco, 2004.Google Scholar
Hare, R.M.. Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point. Oxford University Press, USA, 1981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Gilbert. Desired desires. In Frey and Morris [19], pp. 138–157. Also in Gilbert Harman, Explaining Value: and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 117–136, 2000.
Hofstadter, Douglas R., editor. Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. By Douglas Hofstadter and the Fluid Analogies Research Group. Basic Books, New York, 1995.
Hooker, Brad. Rule consequentialism. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008. Online resource.
Hsu, Jeremy. Real soldiers love their robot brethren. Live Science, 2009. May 21, 2009.Google Scholar
Jenike, Michael A.. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. New England J. of Medicine, 350(3):259–265, 2004.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, Deborah. Computer Ethics. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, 2001. 3rd ed.Google Scholar
Johnson, Deborah. Computer ethics. In Floridi, [16], pages 65–75.
Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. New York, Harper & Row, 1964.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Lasky, Kathryn Blackmond and Lehner, Paul E.. Metareasoning and the problem of small worlds. IEEE Trans. Sys., Man, and Cybernetics, 24(11):1643–1652, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, Janet. Functionalism. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Online resource, 2009.
Lewis, David. An argument for the identity theory. J. of Phil, 63:17–25, 1966.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDermott, Drew. Mind and Mechanism. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2001.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Oxford University Press, New York, 1861. Reprinted many times, including edition edited by Roger Crisp (1998).Google Scholar
Minsky, Marvin. The Society of Mind. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1986.Google Scholar
Moor, James H.. The nature, importance, and difficulty of machine ethics. IEEE Intelligent Sys, 21(4):18–21, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. The View from Nowhere. Oxford University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Némirovsky, Irène. Suite Française. Éditions Denoël, Paris, 2004. English translation by Sandra Smith published by Vintage, 2007.Google Scholar
Newell, Allen. Some problems of basic organization in problem-solving programs. Technical Report 3283-PR, RAND, 1962. Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation. Earlier version appeared in [61].
,Library of Congress Federal Research Division. Country Profile: United Arab Emirates (UAE). Available at lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/UAE.pdf, 2007.
Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Oxford University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Plato, . The Republic. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 360 BCE. Translation by Griffith, Tom and Ferrari, G.R.F. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2000.Google Scholar
Hilary, Putnam. “Degree of confirmation” and inductive logic. In Schilpp, P.A., editor, The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap. The Open Court Publishing Company, Lasalle, Ill., 1963. Also in Hilary Putnam, Mathematics, Matter and Method: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, pages 271-292, 1975.Google Scholar
Rey, Georges. Contemporary Philosophy of Mind: A Contentiously Classical Approach. Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, Mass., 1997.Google Scholar
Rosenblueth, Arturo, Wiener, Norbert, and Bigelow, Julian. Behavior, purpose and teleology. Philosophy of Science, pages 18–24, 1943.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, W. David. The Right and the Good. Oxford University Press, 1930.Google Scholar
Russell, Stuart and Norvig, Peter. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2nd edition). Prentice Hall, 2003.Google Scholar
Savage, L. J.. Statistics, Foundations of. Wiley, New York, 1954.
Searle, John R.. Is the brain's mind a computer program?Scientific American, 262:26–31, 1990.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Searle, John R.. The Rediscovery of the Mind. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1992.Google Scholar
Silberschatz, Abraham, Gagne, Greg, and Galvin, Peter Baer. Operating System Concepts (ed. 8). John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, New York, 2008.Google Scholar
Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics. Cambridge University Press, 1993. 2nd ed.Google Scholar
Swinson, Richard P., Antony, Martin M., Rachman, S., and Richter, Margaret A.. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Theory, Research, and Treatment. Guilford Press, New York. 2001.Google Scholar
Tulving, Endel. Elements of Episodic Memory. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1983.Google Scholar
Tulving, Endel. What is episodic memory?Current Directions in Psych. Sci, 2(3):67–70, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallach, Wendell and Allen, Colin. Moral Machines. Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Wegner, Daniel M.. The Illusion of Conscious Will. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2002.Google Scholar
Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Technology Press, New York, 1948.Google Scholar
Yovits, Marshall C., Jacobi, George T., and Goldstein, Gordon D.. Self-organizing Systems 1962. Spartan Books, 1962.Google Scholar
Ziff, Paul. The feelings of robots. Analysis, 19(3):64–68, 1959.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×