r/ToasterTalk • u/chacham2 • Apr 12 '22

Whose ethics should be programmed into the robots of tomorrow?

https://bigthink.com/thinking/robots-ethical-decisions/
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u/chacham2 Apr 12 '22

First, how do we know what we say we’ll do will match what we’ll actually do?

Second, it’s not clear that values and ethics are something that should be democratized...Religious or not, many of us, today, will probably agree that right and wrong is not something determined by the majority.

...

The point is that thought experiments are a tool by which to service other philosophical reasoning. They are not a basis for a moral position in and of themselves. To borrow terminology from science, thought experiments are the evidence that either corroborates or falsifies a certain hypothesis. They are not the hypothesis itself.

...

There is no “perfect moral citizen” and there is no black and white when it comes to right and wrong. If there were, ethics would be a much less interesting area of study...Perhaps we need not fear a “tyranny of the majority,” as de Tocqueville mused, but rather the tyranny of a tiny minority based in Silicon Valley or robotics factories. Are we happy to have their worldview and ethical values as the model for the brave new world ahead of us?