Technology is not what it used to be. When I was in college, not everyone had a personal computer or cellular telephone. In my day, college students typed their assignments in computer labs and those who had cellular telephones were the top administrators at my school. Today, most young people have their own cellular telephone or laptop computer. Technological devices are plentiful and abundant. On top of that, Artificial Technology (AI) has taken creativity, choice, and computation to new heights. But as technology has advanced, our ethical decision making has seemingly stagnated and even erased. We have become less ethical as a people. The lines that define what is right and wrong, good and evil are seemingly blurred. We have sacrificed morality and ethics for social acceptance. It seems that what was once considered right is now wrong and what was good is deemed evil.
With all this going on, who or what can save us? Many ethicists and computer scientists argue that AI can serve as a conduit to bring us back to our ethical selves. Even as I write, AI is already impacting ethical and moral decision making. The Allen Institute for AI has developed Delphi, a website that provides answers to ethical questions for humans. The website is named after the religious oracle that was consulted by the Greeks in ancient times. Although this sort of technology is available to us, it does have its limitations, most notably that it is programmed by human beings who are morally flawed themselves. As we can reasonably surmise, flawed people inevitably create flawed devices. Delphi, like other similar ethical decision-making technologies, is not perfect. Therefore, it would be unreasonable to depend on it to provide sound moral and ethical advice. Personally, I would not depend on any ethics-based AI technology to take the place of my own reasoning.
Although I am imperfect, I can always rely on one thing and that is my full humanity. Our full humanity gives us the right and privilege to make ethical decisions based on good, morally sound reason. No other external resource, such as Delphi, should be allowed to make ethical decisions. If we train AI to make ethical decisions, we will soon be subject to it. As masters of its creation, AI should not serve as the moral compass of what is considered right or wrong. The act of determining right or wrong should be left up to us because we are supposed to represent the highest form of ethical good on earth. It is my contention that we must take our proper place as ethical stewards of the planet, no matter the cost.
Now, I do believe that AI can aid us in our decision making because it can help us see a different perspective on an issue, but it should not serve as an end all, be all for how we decide to ethically act. Instead of focusing on using AI to make ethical decisions for us, we should center our attention on becoming more ethical human beings. It starts by reaching back to previously held moral tenets that have served us well such as treating our neighbor as we want to be treated. If we re-emphasize a simple principle such as this one, I believe we can surely solve most of our moral challenges.
Ethically Speaking,
Obiora N. Anekwe