Mental time-travel, semantic flexibility, and A.I. ethics
AI and Society 1:1-20 (2018)
Abstract
This article argues that existing approaches to programming ethical AI fail to resolve a serious moral-semantic trilemma, generating interpretations of ethical requirements that are either too semantically strict, too semantically flexible, or overly unpredictable. This paper then illustrates the trilemma utilizing a recently proposed ‘general ethical dilemma analyzer,’ GenEth. Finally, it uses empirical evidence to argue that human beings resolve the semantic trilemma using general cognitive and motivational processes involving ‘mental time-travel,’ whereby we simulate different possible pasts and futures. I demonstrate how mental time-travel psychology leads us to resolve the semantic trilemma through a six-step process of interpersonal negotiation and renegotiation, and then conclude by showing how comparative advantages in processing power would plausibly cause AI to use similar processes to solve the semantic trilemma more reliably than we do, leading AI to make better moral-semantic choices than humans do by our very own lights.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1007/s00146-018-0848-2
My notes
Similar books and articles
The complex act of projecting oneself into the future.Stan Klein - 2013 - WIREs Cognitive Science 4:63-79.
The evolution of foresight: What is mental time travel, and is it unique to humans?Thomas Suddendorf & Michael C. Corballis - 2007 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (3):299-313.
Is Future-Oriented Mental Time Travel Inextricably Linked to the Self?Elena Popa - 2017 - Australasian Philosophical Review 1 (4):420-425.
Collective mental time travel: remembering the past and imagining the future together.Kourken Michaelian & John Sutton - 2019 - Synthese 196 (12):4933-4960.
Mental time travel and the philosophy of memory.André Sant'Anna - 2018 - Unisinos Journal of Philosophy 1 (19):52-62.
Mental Time Travel, Dynamic Evaluation, and Moral Agency.Philip Gerrans & Jeanette Kennett - 2017 - Mind 126 (501):259-268.
Empirical evaluation of mental time travel.Caroline Raby, Dean Alexis, Anthony Dickinson & Nicola Clayton - 2007 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (3):330-331.
Feeling the future: prospects for a theory of implicit prospection.Philip Gerrans & David Sander - 2014 - Biology and Philosophy 29 (5):699-710.
Mental time travel across the disciplines: The future looks bright.Thomas Suddendorf & Michael C. Corballis - 2007 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (3):335-345.
What are the evolutionary causes of mental time travel?Mathias Osvath & Peter Gärdenfors - 2007 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (3):329-330.
Why Would Time Travelers Try to Kill Their Younger Selves?Nicholas J. J. Smith - 2005 - The Monist 88 (3):388-395.
The past, the present, and the future of future-oriented mental time travel: Editors' introduction.Kourken Michaelian, Stanley B. Klein & Karl K. Szpunar - 2016 - In Kourken Michaelian, Stanley B. Klein & Karl K. Szpunar (eds.), Seeing the Future: Theoretical Perspectives on Future-Oriented Mental Time Travel. Oxford University Press. pp. 1-18.
Semantic Normativity and Semantic Causality.Lei Zhong - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (3):626-645.
Analytics
Added to PP
2018-05-19
Downloads
490 (#21,255)
6 months
104 (#7,762)
2018-05-19
Downloads
490 (#21,255)
6 months
104 (#7,762)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
From what to how: an initial review of publicly available AI ethics tools, methods and research to translate principles into practices.Jessica Morley, Luciano Floridi, Libby Kinsey & Anat Elhalal - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (4):2141-2168.
Ethics-based auditing of automated decision-making systems: nature, scope, and limitations.Jakob Mökander, Jessica Morley, Mariarosaria Taddeo & Luciano Floridi - 2021 - Science and Engineering Ethics 27 (4):1–30.
Ethics as a service: a pragmatic operationalisation of AI ethics.Jessica Morley, Anat Elhalal, Francesca Garcia, Libby Kinsey, Jakob Mökander & Luciano Floridi - 2021 - Minds and Machines 31 (2):239–256.
Ethics as a service: a pragmatic operationalisation of AI ethics.Jessica Morley, Anat Elhalal, Francesca Garcia, Libby Kinsey, Jakob Mökander & Luciano Floridi - manuscript
Empowerment or Engagement? Digital Health Technologies for Mental Healthcare.Christopher Burr & Jessica Morley - 2020 - In Christopher Burr & Silvia Milano (eds.), The 2019 Yearbook of the Digital Ethics Lab. pp. 67-88.