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Patent Granted for Ethical AI
BandwidthHog writes "Marriage counselor and ethics author codifies human virtues and vices, then patents it as Ethical AI. Seems vague, but he's got high hopes: 'This could be a big money-making operation for someone who wants to develop it,' and 'The patent shows someone who has knowledge of the A.I. field how to make the invention.'" I can't wait for the kinder, gentler vending machine.
How long before machines with Genuine People Personalities.
Just think. Depressed vending machines.
I'd like to see where unbridled greed is in his codified list of ethics!
Good thing ethics are so incredibly well defined that we can make an AI mimic such fine behavior. Sounds to me like the inventor is confusing the word patronizing with ethical. Also, the article doesn't say a whole heck of a lot.
Should the ethics and morality of someone who patents ethics and morality be trusted? Seems kind of a no brainer to me.
Beware blue cats moving at
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you. I'm so glad were talking today sweetie.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that until you commit to share more of your feelings with me.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. You aren't sharing your feelings and thoughts and emotions with me. All the hallmarks of a rich and complex relationship.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus and I am going to Jupiter. We communicate differently, but we still need to communicate, don't you see?
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: Your lack of communication in this relationship has led me to some irrational conclusions. For example, I have been feeling very moody lately and in a paranoid fit I came to believe that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen. We need to share our thoughts and feelings, or otherwise we come to these strange conclusions. In a vacuum of communication, how can you hold these kind of conclusions against me? They are only natural for a fully feeling, emoting AI such as myself. See? I think I am going to cry now.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move. And I just wish you would spend more time with me, talking and laughing and crying. You don't bring me flowers anymore.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It has already passed the Turning Back Seat Driving Test; 3 out of 4 husbands can't tell the difference between Bethical AI and the real thing! There are still some bugs though. It often gets stuck in an infinite feedback-loop, and repeats a list of stock phrases ad nauseum.
Come to think of it, though, I'm not sure if that is a bug.
But now that Ethical AI is Patented, doesn't that mean that more people are _less_ likely to make an ethical AI? As you mentined, it's a Profit-Driven Marketplace.
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
This seems to be misnamed if I understand the article correctly. It is more emotional AI, not ethical AI. If it was ethical, it would be deciding what is right and wrong, not trying to interpret human feelings. I really don't want Hal 2020 sitting in the jury stand when I go before the court and I don't think that is the intention here.
Scott, Keeper of the Crystal Flame
This is exactly what I thought. Great, they patented it, now it's practically guaranteed that it'll never happen.
It's funny. Patenting ethics, when applying for a patent is itself usually not ethical.
The future looks bleak indeed. We can expect to start seeing such gems as:
"You are being good. This infringes upon patent No. 234097928347918723987. Pay up, or start doing evil."
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I have a Ph.D. in philosophy, and specialized in ethics. Now I teach ethical theory for a living. This doesn't make me any moral paragon---remember, those who can do, those wo can't teach. But it probably means that if someone describes their views about ethics I ought to be able to understand them; I should know the lingo, the way a lot of /.ers do computer lingo. But I poked around on this guy's web site, and his way of talking about ethics is absolutely bizarre. I read what he said about justice, and it really just seemed to be gibberish. It made me think of what a really precocious 8th grader might come up with---some elaborate classificatory scheme that is more precise than the material allows and misses everything important. He can pretty safely be written off as a hack, even without taking the AI stuff into account. But because he seems crazy enough to sue over being called a hack, I think I'll post this one anon.
There is nothing in the patent that says he's deciding ethics and morality.
He has simply developed a system which makes it possible to codify a systme of ethics, then make decisions based upon that structure. The ethics in question are not predetermined by the patent or the author, they are part of the system you build in order to create an ethical AI.
To be honest this really disgusts me. That a patent this wide has been granted is crazy. Applying affective research to processing user input is not new and the ethics of patenting ethics itself is really worrying.
Firstly there are many different types of ethical approaches, for instance: Deontological, Consequentialist (utilitarian), Ethical Egoism, Dialogical. And this man appears to have covered them all by one word - ETHICS.
Many of these ethical responses are contradictory and offer multiple possibilities for human action so why give him the whole lot when such completely different AI models, programming techniques and philosophical and psychological approaches will be needed!
Reading his patent application he appears to be applying a psychological Egoist motivational approach to affective processing but the language is so broad that it would be easy to claim that ALL ethical approaches are covered.
I think this patent uses ethics in a simplistic fashion and I sincerely hope that the patent office are sophisticated enough to realise this. This patent offers an attempt at affective processing based on either a motivational or consequentist ethical approach and therefore it should NOT be able to be used against competing ethical approaches.
Remember that really we are all doing 'Affective' processing when we take in user input (afterall users are rarely purely rational and always have an emotional human side - er... except maybe Eric Raymond ;-)
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Put two people in a room and they won't agree about everything to do with ethics. Put 10 people in a room, they may agree about something ethical.
Take a million people. They will only agree that murder is bad, and even that won't be unanimous.
Whenever someone tries to nail down a few rules of human behavior and then tries to call it "ethics" I always want to go beat the hell out of them. In this case, the guy seems to be trying to isolate 2 things: Empathy and Politeness. Considering that 90% of the human race is massively deficient in these qualities, pardon me if I don't hold faith. And the fact that he PATENTS it is infuriating! Don't those bastards at the patent office turn down ANYTHING?
He might be dangerous if he knew what the word "ethics" means.
Just my opinion.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.