Ethical Issues of Artificial Intelligence

The development of artificial intelligence (AI)

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) in the recent past has changed people’s lives for the better. These systems have enabled the world to become more efficient and consequently become richer. Technology giants like Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon as well as people such as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking believe that it is crucial to educate the world on the limitless benefits of artificial intelligence. Likewise, most of the largest technology corporations have developed their versions of AI in the quest to gain a competitive advantage. Some of these AI systems include Alexa by Amazon, Alphabet’s Google Assistance, and Cortana by Microsoft. Nevertheless, several ethical issues have come up regarding the development of these systems. Despite the advantages brought by the Artificial Intelligence, there are ethical problems to be considered to ensure that the drawbacks do not outweigh the benefits.

Unemployment

According to research, Artificial Intelligent systems are capable of improving automation at the manufacturing firms significantly (Davis, 2015). This is attributed to the fact that when machines are made to learn from the operations and develop over time; they can perform better than their human counterparts. Nonetheless, automating factories and offices means that human beings will not be needed anymore. Hence, this will result in massive joblessness around the world. According to research, trucking employs millions of Americans and thus helping in improving the lives of individuals (Davis, 2015). However, organizations like Tesla Inc. are developing electric trucks which in future will be able to drive themselves. The benefit of self-driving automotive is that there will be reduced road accidents since vehicles will be able to “talk” to each other. On the contrary, despite the high level of intelligence, human beings are susceptible to errors. Hence, trucking organization will prefer AI systems driving their vehicles instead of humans. Since most of the world population depends on selling their time to sustain themselves, AI systems might result in high unemployment rates in all regions.

Who Should be Accountable

On most occasions, when people make mistakes in various organizations, there are rules and regulations which ensure that the right individual is held accountable. This guarantees accountability and assists in circumventing wrong convictions and losses (Zgrzebnicki, 2017). However, with the development of the AI systems, people are likely to utilize them in different ways. When AI systems are misused or manipulated to perform unethical issues, it will be difficult to hold an individual into account. Currently, few rules and regulations are guarding against adverse effects associated with artificial intelligence. The primary concern with accountability is pinpointing the individual who should be blamed for any problems (Zgrzebnicki, 2017). Due to the fact that a computer cannot be held responsible, AI systems might lead to the conviction of the wrong people.

Algorithms and Context

According to research, moral decision-making is significantly nuanced. To clarify, human beings are characterized by a change of decisions depending on the current trends. For example, companies can decide to decrease the price of a commodity when there is low demand. Additionally, the cost may be increased when the need for a product is high. On most occasions, this is a reasonable decision to make. Nevertheless, when AI is assigned the task of monitoring such trends, its algorithms may fail to consider different contexts involved in each scenario (Etzioni & Etzioni, 2017). In products such as life-saving drugs, there might be only one organization remaining as a supplier. In such situations, an AI may decide to raise the price of the product, regardless of the fact that people’s lives depend on it. The ethical issue in context is whether AIs will be able to incorporate all the available data to make the right decisions.

Humanity

AI agents such as Siri by Apple and Cortana by Microsoft have improved significantly in their ability to converse with people. Despite that human beings have a limited capability in the kindness and attention they offer to each other, AI systems have unlimited resources to enable them to incorporate these human aspects better (Etzioni & Etzioni, 2017). For instance, in the film named Her, the actor demonstrates how a person can build a relationship with an AI system to the levels of human interactions (Jonze, 2013). The impact of such systems is that people may prefer interacting with machines to other human beings, which might reduce the development of humanity substantially.

Conclusion

The ethical issues of artificial intelligence development have been discussed in various areas of education. Furthermore, AI systems have improved lives by making it easier to perform household tasks and automation. However, many argue against the improvements of artificial intelligence due to the associated effects. AI systems may cause unemployment, make wrong decisions due to incorrect algorithms, and limit the development of humanity. Moreover, these systems may make it hard to hold a single person into account in case of a problem. The issues associated with artificial intelligence have been brought around by humans. This means that these concerns can be addressed appropriately if the developers agree on specific rules and regulations.

References

Davis, E. (2015). Ethical guidelines for a superintelligence. Artificial Intelligence, 220, 121-124. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2014.12.003

Etzioni, A., & Etzioni, O. (2017). Incorporating Ethics into Artificial Intelligence. The Journal of Ethics, 21(4), 403-418. dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10892-017-9252-2

Jonze, S. (2013). Her. Hollywood: Warner Bros.

Zgrzebnicki, P. (2017). Selected Ethical Issues in Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous System Development, and Large Data Set Processing. Studia Humana, 6(3). dx.doi.org/10.1515/sh-2017-0020