Ethical dilemmas and artificial intelligence

Should a driverless car swerve to miss a child, knowing it will kill itspassenger? Or should it maintain its path and end a younger life?It’s deeply troubling ethical dilemmas like these that Sandra Peterbelieves will hinder the mass uptake of driverless cars, possibly beyondour lifetimes.Peter, the director of Sydney Business Insights, posed the quandary onan episode of ABC’s Q&A devoted to the future, where discussionsfocused on the ethical complexities and seismic structural shiftsbrought by technology, artificial intelligence, big data and automation.“Smart people are trying to figure out how this works,” Peter said.“We have a project out of MIT that is looking at who should die,basically, in the case of driverless cars,” she said. “A little childruns in front of the car, should the car kill me and drive me into apole or save the child? Luckily the child pretty much all the time makesit.”“The old lady, on the other hand, doesn’t always make it. If it’s twocats and the child, it’s a higher likelihood than the two dogs, and soon.”A similar theme arose in a discussion of artificial intelligence and itsability to surpass human comprehension and control, a theme given newlife by reported findings in Google’s powerful AI project known asDeepMind.In February it was reported that DeepMind became more aggressive as a competitive game intensified.But the biggest risk in the rapid advances of artificial intelligence,Peter said, was not that “they’re coming to get us”. Rather, it was thathumans’ inherent biases would be reflected in the AI we designed.Robots, in this view, would make biased decisions about who goes tojail, who gets a loan or who gets parole. “Those sorts of biases, thesealgorithms, it’s not of our own making, we don’t train them to bebiased, but they’re modelled on the real world,” Peter said.The conversation also focused on the disruptive nature of technology onexisting industry and what skills young Australians need to survive inan increasingly automated world.The author, ethics advocate and drone expert Catherine Ball saidcreativity and life experience would be essential in a world wheremundane jobs were taken by robots. Such creativity should be balanced byStem, coding and problem-solving skills.“The World Economic Forum predicted we will need complex problem-solvingskills,” Ball said. “Robots are good at doing the mundane but not goodat thinking outside the square or being creative.“Keep your experiences and your life experiences broad. Travel, travel,travel. Meet as many different kinds of people as you possibly can.”The Assistant Innovation and Science Minister, Craig Laundy, predictedAustralia’s education sector would be radically reshaped as workersmoved through jobs with increasing frequency. The notion of reskillingand lifelong learning would grow, he said.Laundy maintained that jobs in traditional sectors such as mining andagriculture would remain but that roles in aged and disability carewould become more important.He predicted complementary technology would bring prosperity and jobs, contrary to the “doom and gloom” around automation.“Complementary technology like exoskeletons where humans will be in themenabling – and this comes out of the defence space – enabling them toperform tasks that are (superhuman), above and beyond our naturalabilities and the integration of the individual and the machine,” hesaid. “It’s not just the machine doing everything.”Ball spoke in similarly optimistic terms about drones, which she saidcould greatly aid in humanitarian efforts and environmental protection.She described a world in which drones deliver blood at crash scenes,help save the Great Barrier Reef from crown-of-thorns starfish, protectswimmers from sharks, aid police and firefighters, and deliver goods andservices. Many of those examples were already occurring, she said.“There’s even a company in the Rockies that you could pop on yourvirtual reality headset, fly a drone around the Rockies in real life andland it back on its landing pad and you will have experienced a part ofthe world you’ll never have experienced before,” Ball said.The panellists were asked whether technology had made us more alone, despite its capacity to foster interconnectedness.The shadow digital economy minister, Ed Husic, said technology shouldnot be blamed for the way individuals use it. “It’s people’s decisionsabout how they use tech and the way in which they relate to each other,”he said.“That’s at the heart of this. I see the good, the upside of being ableto communicate with one person on the other side of the world.“I came from a migrant family where you had to wait once a month to ringthe other side of the planet for 10 minutes and you budgeted that callbecause it costs so much. That’s all you did. Now you get on Skype, youcan do that instantaneously.” – Guardian News and Media