Kia Reinders Blog #3

Pervasive computing, artificial intelligence, and robotics were the topics that interested me the most- especially artificial intelligence.  While these sorts of technologies have been around for a while, I do not think that they’ve been used to the extremes that they are today.  My interest in these technologies has been fed throughout the years by various science fiction movies and television shows, but I had a very limited understanding about how to apply ethics to, for example, artificial intelligence.  I probably never even considered the ethics of artificial intelligence.  The idea of having intelligent agents is exciting and there are so many possibilities and roles that these agents can play.   Ultimately, I think people want them to exist to make our human lives easier, but sometimes we forget that ethics need to be applied to the design and development of the machines. 

A the name suggests, an intelligent agent needs to have intelligence.  This is interesting, because you can argue that in order to have intelligence, you need to have experiences.  “Are computers indeed capable of exhibiting human-like intelligence?” (Tavani, 355).  So, if a machine has intelligence, does that also mean that it has feelings and emotions?  Having feelings and emotions are inherent to human beings.  We can tell when we are sad, happy, or angry and we can tell right from wrong.  Could machines also be made to have human emotions?  Do we even want machines to be able to have human emotions?  Creating machines that have the ability to think, feel, understand, process language, and learn sounds pretty cool, but that would open up a whole new area of ethical concerns and could be potentially dangerous to humans. 

One of the best representations of machines with human-like intelligence and emotions is from the movie A. I.: Artificial Intelligence.  The movie follows a humanoid that resembles a human child and is designed to show love for his “owners”.  The humanoid, David, shows and feels real love for his “mother” and even experiences hate.  His “mother” also experiences love for him.  This particular machine is gentle and kind and wants to be loved and to love.  He does what he is designed to do.  I like the idea of intelligent agents, but only if they are not programmed to harm humans, and as long as they are not capable of learning to harm them.  I don’t think machines should have motivation to do things.  Take Apple’s Siri, for example.  Overtime, Siri learns and understands the user, but it never “does things” without you telling it to do something.  So, Siri will not make an appointment or note for you unless you tell instruct it to. 

Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics can serve as ethical guidelines when robots.  I think these could be applied in any instance of robotics or artificial intelligence.  Even more interesting, is that Asimov originally wrote these three laws for a short story, but now they are being applied to real robotics and artificial intelligence.  I think that this proves that the concern that robots could potentially harm humans is a valid one.  We have heard of instances where mechanical failure resulted in harm to humans.  In those situations, there was a glitch in a mechanical system that was an accident and not done on purpose.  If, however, a machine were to intentionally decide to harm humans, then it would not be an accident.  It would be an intelligent decision. 

I feel like I gained a better understanding of technology and how to apply ethics to it.  A machine is still a machine whether it can talk to you or not, but it’s difficult to feel that way when the machine expresses emotions and can express those emotions on its face.  When I watched A. I.: Artificial Intelligence, I noticed that I sympathized for the machine.  I knew it was a machine, but it could feel emotions like sadness and love.  Aren’t our emotions what truly make us human?  Perhaps the sympathy towards machines is what could land us into trouble and make us lose sight of its artificialness.