Robotics and AI growth: exploring ethical dilemmas
“This struck me as an interesting philosophical question,” said ethics professor Kevin Snider. “Suppose Sophia advances and she takes on some kind of self-awareness, whatever it means to be a person. Does she have the image of God? I don’t know how to answer that question.”
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From washing machines that can detect the amount of water needed for each load, to predictions for driverless cars being a norm in metropolitan areas, to Sophia the Robot being granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia, artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to and has been slowly infiltrating the daily routine of human life. With these advances comes an advance in considering the ethical and moral implications.
According to Intel, artificial intelligence “helps extract deeper intelligence from data. … AI is paving the way to solve highly complex medical challenges, advance scientific research, and better predict events, and human behavior.”
Intel’s website displays their “AI Portfolio,” including hardware and software technologies that serve as the framework for the application of AI and room for more diverse and complex capabilities in the future.
An example of the hardware is the Intel Saffron, a program that uses human-like reasoning to see patterns in data that “enable confident decisions that deliver rapid return on investments,” thus providing financial services to businesses and investors.
“One of the things I want to think about is when we create a product or look at implementing some new technology, in what ways is this new technology/AI/robot going to help bring about the fundamental what-it-means-to-be-human thing,” said Lee ethics professor Kevin Snider, “…and in what ways will it harm that?”
Snider’s general field of study is in ethics, philosophy and moral psychology. He enjoys exploring the thought experiment on the possibility of robots experiencing moral psychology in the way humans do, posing questions such as, “Can a robot have desire? A function of will?”
A particular thought experiment that intrigued Snider to look deeper into the ethical implications in this field is the idea of whether a computer could possibly be considered a slave to “her” owner. The question coming into play with this thought is the possibility of a computer or AI possessing personhood.
Snider then began a journey to look deeper into subjects such as sex robots and companion robots; it's a plus that his students often find these conversations engaging.
“A hot issue in current philosophical ethics is sex robots. [This] gets into important theological or philosophical questions about what is the nature of sex relationships and how personhood plays into that,” said Snider.
And, Snider pointed out, if it is possible for a mechanical robot to take on some form of self-awareness, then Christians will face the theological question of whether the “personhood” of the AI carries the image of God.
Companion robots can be used for reasons outside of sexual desires. Robots are currently being used in nursing homes. CT Asia Robotics is leading the forefront for elderly care robots. Its robot, Disnow, reminds the human to take their pills, tracks health/vitals and automatically answers phone calls from family or doctors.
“One of the fundamental things of being human is social elements. Fundamental to being human is being engaged on a personal level with other human beings,” said Snider. “[If] we start replacing that with robots, then I wonder if we are undermining what it means to be truly human.”
The trickiness, he said, is when a companion robot emerges that does not undermine the social fabric. Whether the robot could be considered a person is a gray area, which opens the door to its being considered a slave to its owner.
With personhood comes the right to citizenship and other rights that persons are given, including moral obligations.
Sophia the Robot, Hanson Robotics latest creation, is setting a precedent in her recent grant of citizenship in Saudi Arabia.
Hanson calls her one of the most fascinating technology stories of today’s time as she portrays human likeness and expressiveness. Her creator, Hanson Robotics founder David Hanson, set out to create machines that will outdo human intelligence. He hopes to create genius machines that have “creativity, empathy, and compassion” integrated into their hardware. Sophia provides a taste of this vision to the world, as her story has reached over ten billion readers in 2017.
“This struck me as an interesting philosophical question,” said Snider. “Suppose Sophia advances and she takes on some kind of self-awareness, whatever it means to be a person. Does she have the image of God? I don’t know how to answer that question.”
British professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Anil Seth predicts in a TED Talk that a machine will not develop true conscience because this revelation is reserved for living, breathing organisms. Consciousness, according to Seth, has less to do with intelligence and more to do with the nature of the living.
Snider believes that if this were to surface and become more of a norm, Christians would have to wrestle with the fact that there may be persons beyond human beings.
If so, he thinks, this could give Christians an opportunity to practice benevolence and the core values that Christ followers hold true.
Another theological question comes into play when considering the personhood of AI: the state of its salvation.
“In Christian theology, there is space for all creation participating in the salvation process and being redeemed…from rocks to trees, and these things certainly aren’t sentient,” said Snider. “It would seem to me then that it’s possible, too, AI robot technologies could maybe participate. … Maybe it’s limited in the same ways that dogs participate in religion.”
The church may have to be approaching these questions sooner rather than later. In general, in Snider’s eyes, people are not aware of how much current AI surrounds them, be it primitive or more outlandish.
He tries to tread on the topic of advancing technology with a sense of balance, not being too optimistic or too pessimistic.
“Personally when I think about ethics, I try to find this middle space,” said Snider. “The heart of the question is: How do our technological advances help humanity flourish in the nature of what humans are?”
