28 - What Can AI Do for Ethics?

Summary

Introduction

Practical ethics typically addresses itself to such general issues as whether we ought to carry out abortions or slaughter animals for meat, and, if so, under what circumstances. The answers to these questions have a useful role to play in the development of social policy and legislation. They are, arguably, less useful to the ordinary individual wanting to ask:

“Ought I, in my particular circumstances, and with my particular values, to have an abortion/eat veal?”

Such diverse ethical theories as Utilitarianism (Mill, 1861) and Existentialism (MacQuarrie, 1972) do address themselves to the question of how we ought to go about making such decisions. The problem with these, however, is that they are generally inaccessible to the individual facing a moral dilemma.

This is where AI comes in. It is ideally suited to exploring the processes of ethical reasoning and decision-making, and computer technology such as the world wide web is increasingly making accessible to the individual information which has only been available to “experts” in the past. However, there are questions which remain to be asked such as:

• Could we design an Ethical Decision Assistant for everyone? i.e., could we provide it with a set of minimal foundational principles without either committing it to, or excluding users from, subscribing to some ethical theory or religious code?

• What would its limitations be? i.e., how much could/ should it do for us and what must we decide for ourselves?

• How holistic need it be? i.e., should it be restricted to “pure” ethical reasoning or need it consider the wider issues of action and the motivations underlying it?