Digital Ethics

It appears we are standing on the horizon of developing a true artificial intelligence, but is it a horizon we should willingly cross?

I think it’s fair to say that we all have concerns regarding the development of AI but one of the biggest seems to be that we make an intelligent machine ‘too human', after all we saw how The Terminator and iRobot turned out. In reality though it’s a challenging set of parameters to define, not least of all because we can’t even agree or recognize what being ‘too human’ means, but the fear is that once a machine crosses that 'humanity' threshold in our own mind, we will succumb to emotional attachment and a projection of consciousness. Once this happens it may be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to recognize that AI as a machine. To many, myself included, this seems like a perfectly plausible and normal response, inevitable even. For others it seems unrealistic and improbable in it's very suggestion, after all how can we possibly form a deep emotional bond with a non-sentient object? What is sentience or consciousness even? Can we define either? More importantly, does it even matter in terms of human perception?

I find it strange that so many people are hostile to these ideas, even those who are not usually skeptical when it comes to new technology. Why should we be surprised by the idea of showing emotional attachment to a robot? For much of our species history, we have developed deep emotional attachments to the most mundane and illogical of objects, soft toys are just one familiar example. Human nature is also littered with examples of our fascination with totemic objects, an example of which I have hanging from a chain around my neck - the small, aluminum name tag that our Cat Felix used to wear on his collar before he passed away. As an object alone it is nothing more than a small, worthless piece of metal. Clearly it was never a physical part of him and yet my mind tells me that in some sense, it is. Somehow it carries part of who he was. Even though my mind has 12 years of memories that will never fade I still feel a deep compulsion to never let it go. It’s an overwhelming emotional connection so strong that were I to lose the item the sense of devastation would be comparable to the loss of Felix himself. As with so much regarding the human brain, this sense of loss appears completely irrational both in an emotional sense and a practical one. There is no benefit to lamenting the loss of an object when we have memories and recollections that are much richer and deeper.

Surely then, irrational and illogical behavior are what it means to be human, so why do we resist it? We’re conditioned to perceive irrational and illogical behavior as negative, much more so in the age of technology we currently live in, and I find myself asking why. We have an inbuilt sense of connection to sentience and we respond in kind to reciprocity from another individual. Whether that individual is of biological origins or not seems a mute point, particularly as this conviction readily applies to inert objects with no intrinsic value. So I struggle to see how anyone can argue that we could never feel the same way about an electronic intelligence, especially one that is humanoid or animalistic in nature. Perhaps it’s the real reason we have such a deep, collective concern over the ethics and morality surrounding AI, and yet ironically I think it's also why both those issues will end up being much less complicated than most people predict. After all, if we ascribe an emotional connection to an electronic form of consciousness in the same way we do for sentience then the question of how we treat them becomes much simpler. (although one could argue that our record on human and animal rights provides a valid counter argument).

Of course, we still have a long way to go. Currently we can't even agree on what consciousness is in human terms, let alone within a positronic mind. One thing seems certain though, we are getting ever closer to the event horizon and once we cross it, much like a black hole, there will be no coming back. It could very well lead the way to a whole new framework of existence for our species, perhaps in ways we are not yet able to comprehend. Whatever happens I am in no doubt that the long term future of our species is firmly in the realm of biological and digital integration, at which point our scope for exploration and discovery becomes truly limitless.

Personally I’d be at the head of the line for the first consciousness download and one way journey to interstellar space and beyond. Besides, it’s easier than inventing a warp drive…