Towards Moral Autonomous Systems

Abstract

Both the ethics of autonomous systems and the problems of their technical implementation have by now been studied in some detail. Less attention has been given to the areas in which these two separate concerns meet. This paper, written by both philosophers and engineers of autonomous systems, addresses a number of issues in machine ethics that are located at precisely the intersection between ethics and engineering. We first discuss the main challenges which, in our view, machine ethics posses to moral philosophy. We them consider different approaches towards the conceptual design of autonomous systems and their implications on the ethics implementation in such systems. Then we examine problematic areas regarding the specification and verification of ethical behavior in autonomous systems, particularly with a view towards the requirements of future legislation. We discuss transparency and accountability issues that will be crucial for any future wide deployment of autonomous systems in society. Finally we consider the, often overlooked, possibility of intentional misuse of AI systems and the possible dangers arising out of deliberately unethical design, implementation, and use of autonomous robots.

References in corpus (4)

• European Union regulations on algorithmic decision-making and a "right to explanation"
• The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles
• Artificial Intelligence Safety and Cybersecurity: a Timeline of AI Failures
• The Dark Side of Ethical Robots

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• The Key Concepts of Ethics of Artificial Intelligence - A Keyword based Systematic Mapping Study
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• The social dilemma in artificial intelligence development and why we have to solve it
• The Jiminy Advisor: Moral Agreements Among Stakeholders Based on Norms and Argumentation
• Unpredictability of AI
• Responses to a Critique of Artificial Moral Agents
• Have a break from making decisions, have a MARS: The Multi-valued Action Reasoning System
• On Controllability of AI
• Computability, Complexity, Consistency and Controllability: A Four C's Framework for cross-disciplinary Ethical Algorithm Research