Artificial Intelligence
75 Ethics in AI
Mara Kinsey
History of AI
Technology has continued to evolve rapidly throughout the 21st century, with artificial intelligence becoming increasingly popular and accessible. Artificial intelligence (AI) became a concept in the 1950s, with Alan Turing becoming the first mathematician to conceptualize the idea of a computer being able to complete human tasks (Coursera, 2024). Other notable AI accomplishments throughout the 1900s include ELIZA, Shakey the Robot, the first driverless car, and Deep Blue. The beginnings of AI brought about the first chatbot and computers able to play chess games. The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) was founded in the 1980s as an association for understanding how machines are programmed to have intelligent behavior. The 2000s have brought Kismet, IBM Watson, Siri and Alexa, and AlphaGo, among other programming. These technologies created programs that could recognize and adapt robots to differing environments, understand spoken language and identify human emotions. The most recent advancements in technology have created DALL-E and ChatGPT in 2022.
Introduction
“Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem-solving, decision making, creativity and autonomy” (BMI, 2024). Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, is currently the most advanced form of AI available to the general public. Generative AI is able to take human input and create original text and other forms of media. The implications of this technology are far-reaching, including but not limited to social, economic, and safety improvements (Siau, 2020). However, it is essential to evaluate how to effectively and ethically use the quickly evolving advancements of AI. Ethics are the set of principles and guidelines that help distinguish between right and wrong (BMI, 2024). Ethical principles must be applied to the applications of AI to ensure technology does not cross moral boundaries and protect the best interests of the public. “Ethics issues include data responsibility and privacy, fairness, explainability, robustness, transparency, environmental sustainability, inclusion, moral agency, value alignment, accountability, trust, and technology misuse.” Because of the complexity of AI as a whole, it is equally as complicated to create a set of guidelines to program ethical computers. The creators of AI inadvertently create bias in their technology, and this bias must be studied, and further advancements must be made to counteract injustices. Additionally, it is important to create a foundation of trust in technology to allow for the expansion of AI to improve society.
Application of Ethics
Artificial intelligence can be an extremely beneficial tool for everyday life as long as it is being used ethically. AI can effectively synchronize data and complete monotonous tasks that may result in human error (Heilinger, 2022). The applications of AI aim to improve human lives and simplify tedious tasks. As technology advances, humans must also advance to protect themselves from ethical issues.
The main ethical problems that need to be discussed are:
- Understanding and controlling complex AI systems
- Who is responsible for the possible resulting harm
- Preventing discrimination, biases and social injustices
- Protecting the privacy of people
- Preventing the deskilling of AI due to use
- Preventing super-intelligence with its own goals
The nature of AI has made it extremely difficult for researchers to create a concrete set of guidelines for the ethical use of AI. Additionally, the current ideas must be refined into more specific categories for humans and computers to follow (Hagendorff , 2020). The problems with AI lie within the biases that are innately written into their coding. In order to prevent ethical issues that affect hiring, healthcare, and criminal justice, auditing and diverse teams are required. Protecting privacy can cause ethical issues due to the broad reach of personal data that their searches can conduct. It is a balancing act between creating new technologies and transparency in privacy and bias. AI also allows for a lack of accountability and distrust in the technology because of the animosity of data from computers. Applying ethical principles when there is no clear person at fault for incorrect information is a difficult task. Organizations using AI must be careful to create a community of ethical awareness, clear guidelines, and transparency of usage (Tuzhilin, 2024).
STS/Impact on Society
Artificial intelligence has quickly become ingrained in society, with its applications far-reaching from large corporations to personal use. With its expansion, there are many questions about the impact it will have on society. AI can have a lasting impact on how society operates, including identity, security, friendship, fairness, and privacy (Farina, 2022). This is why ethics are an integral part of analyzing how AI and society are interconnected. There are both positive and negative implications associated with these changes in society. The positive effects include improved healthcare diagnoses and treatments, minimizing human error, and making people’s lives easier. While there are positive impacts, with the magnitude of influence AI can have on society, it must be monitored closely. The negative impacts include a loss of jobs, technology evolving without human influence, and bias developing (Tai, 2020).
Missing Voices
Ethical issues in artificial intelligence are heavily involved by missing voices. AI decision-making is based on the behaviors and choices made by the sources they are taking from. When data is taken from sources that often take into account the majority of voices, it often excludes the viewpoints of minorities. Society often makes moral decisions based on group perception, and AI reflects those perceptions (Wu, 2022) . It is essential to create generative AI that includes all voices, not just the most prominent ones.
Conclusion
AI has rapidly changed over the last century, changing from mathematicians creating large-scale computers to current generative AI like ChatGPT. With these changes, ethics are critical to prevent negative issues from arising. Society is deeply impacted by technology, which influences daily life. Ethical principles such as discrimination, privacy, and preventing the deskilling of AI are important discussions. To prevent these issues, we must develop diverse processes to create transparency in corporations and society as a whole. As AI continues to develop in the future, society must be careful to follow ethical principles to improve humanity and reduce the chances of inequality.
References
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Hagendorff, T. (2020, July 28). The ethics of AI Ethics: An evaluation of guidelines – minds and machines. SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11023-020-09517-8
Heilinger, J.-C. (2022, July 7). The ethics of AI ethics. A constructive critique – philosophy & technology. SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-022-00557-9
The history of AI: A Timeline of Artificial Intelligence. Coursera. (n.d.). https://www.coursera.org/articles/history-of-ai
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