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The Future Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Humans and Human Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2019

Steven Livingston  and
Mathias Risse
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Abstract

What are the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) on human rights in the next three decades? Precise answers to this question are made difficult by the rapid rate of innovation in AI research and by the effects of human practices on the adaption of new technologies. Precise answers are also challenged by imprecise usages of the term “AI.” There are several types of research that all fall under this general term. We begin by clarifying what we mean by AI. Most of our attention is then focused on the implications of artificial general intelligence (AGI), which entail that an algorithm or group of algorithms will achieve something like superintelligence. While acknowledging that the feasibility of superintelligence is contested, we consider the moral and ethical implications of such a potential development. What do machines owe humans and what do humans owe superintelligent machines?

Keywords

artificial intelligencemachine learningdeep learningreinforcement learningsuperintelligenceartificial general intelligenceethical impact agentsimplicit ethical agentscategorical imperativehuman rights
Type
Roundtable: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Global Affairs
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , Summer 2019 , pp. 141 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2019 

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References

NOTES

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5 “Can We Rule Out Near-Term AGI?,” YouTube video, 17:19, posted by Web Summit, November 7, 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=YHCSNsLKHfM. For a contrary view, see Trent Eady, “Does Recent Progress with Neural Networks Foretell Artificial General Intelligence?,” Medium, December 4, 2018, medium.com/protopiablog/does-recent-progress-with-neural-networks-foretell-artificial-general-intelligence-9545c17a5d8b.

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31 Oren Etzioni, quoted in Larry Greenemeier, “AI versus AI: Self-Taught AlphaGo Zero Vanquishes Its Predecessor,” Scientific American, October 18, 2017, www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-versus-ai-self-taught-alphago-zero-vanquishes-its-predecessor/; emphasis added.

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35 Vinge, “The Coming Technological Singularity.”

36 April Glaser, “Elon Musk Wants to Connect Computers to Your Brain So We Can Keep Up with Robots,” Recode, March 27, 2013, www.recode.net/2017/3/27/15079226/elon-musk-computers-technology-brain-ai-artificial-intelligence-neural-lace; see also “We Are Already Cyborgs / Elon Musk / Code Conference 2016,” YouTube video, 5:11, posted by Recode, June 2, 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLKof9YSAshgyPqlKUUYrHfIQaOzFPSL4&v=ZrGPuUQsDjo.

37 Isobel Asher Hamilton, “Elon Musk Believes AI Could Turn Humans into an Endangered Species like the Mountain Gorilla,” Business Insider, November 26, 2018, www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-ai-could-turn-humans-into-endangered-species-2018-11.

38 Kurt Schlosser, “MIT Student Wows ‘60 Minutes’ by Surfing the Internet and Ordering Pizza — with His Mind,” GeekWire, April 23, 2018, www.geekwire.com/2018/mit-student-wows-60-minutes-surfing-internet-ordering-pizza-mind/.

39 For explorations of such a blended world, see Marx Tegmark, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (New York: Knopf, 2017).

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46 Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach and Back, p. 400.

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