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RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

The laws of consequence The maths of morality

The concept of consequence is nothing new. Scientists If technology is able to zoom in and out, offering more
have been studying its behavior for centuries. Newton micro and macro insights into human behavior and
reminds us in his third law that every action has an impact, how do we ensure that insight will translate into
equal and opposite reaction; Clausius and Kelvin tell us ethical action? In other words, how can we make sure
in the first law of thermodynamics that energy cannot be the robots and ‘biota’ and ‘Mama Gaia’ will all want to
created or destroyed ‒ only transformed from one form be friends? The question is not so easy, when you
to another. So, when we extract oil from the earth, consider the complexities of overpopulation, short-term
transforming its thermal energy into kinetic energy to profit gain, and demands for environmental protection,
turn a turbine to generate electricity for our household all running side by side and vying for more on top. If we
use, we have to know there will be a consequence on ever want to tap into the heartbeat of our own Gaia,
the other side of the equation. Look no further than our we’ll have to invest far more in the algorithm of ethics.
melting ice caps for exhibit A.
Says Pedro Domingos, author of the recent book The
But, as our devices become all the more embedded Master Algorithm, “I actually don’t think it’s that hard to
with intelligence, and IoT rolls merrily our way, we have encode ethical considerations into machine learning
less excuses not to connect the dots into the future. algorithms.” However, he notes: “The big question is
Machine learning will increasingly make sense of the whether we human beings are able to formalize our
vast oceans of data flooding in daily, filtering out helpful ethical beliefs in a halfway coherent and complete
insights and patterns to enable improvements in nearly way.” The real issue is, as custodians of a moral code,
every sphere of life. Machines will most probably get are human beings even able to articulate and agree on
very good at pointing out the opportunities and pitfalls, what’s right and wrong?
and we will be left to steward these key insights.
At this relatively early stage of AI advancement, the
An apocalyptic alternative onus is on us to intersect and qualify the moral code for
sustainability, planet and population alike. If we can
Of course, there are warning lights everywhere. The learn to connect our technologies to understand the
ubiquitous concern is that we’re frantically investing in a rhythms and impacts of symbiotic living, we may not
world order that could potentially outrun our human have to strap those moon boots on and plan our earthly
capacities and ingenuity, offering no promise to keep us exodus just yet.
in it someday. Experts like Nick Bostrom warn us of the
grave danger in controlling AI, including Elon Musk who Perhaps the notion of Pandora was not as ‘out there’ as
predicts its powers to trigger WW3 and eventually wipe it seemed. Our world is extraordinarily interwoven; we
out humanity. may just be building the tools to interpret and
manipulate its complexity for the better. But as systems
But apocalyptic singularity is only one way of looking at sophisticate, the question governing our future will not
it. Some of the world’s top entrepreneurs are be so much how we will steward this responsibility, but
suggesting a more cooperative, hands-on approach to rather will we? ◊
the issue. Industry leaders such as Eric Schmidt, Peter
Thiel and Elon Musk have invested billions in the
research and promotion of ethical AI to ‘benefit
humanity as a whole’. Called OpenAI, the new non-
profit is aimed at developing artificial intelligence that By Matt Gurr,
will serve as a tool to help solve major challenges, Associate at Aurecon -
Electrical Engineer, Design
including climate change and food security. They argue Leader and Mission Critical/
our technologies can become forces for greater good, Datacentre Specialist
rather than shovels for our species’ grave. Says
Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer,
“The power of AI technology is it can solve problems This post originally appeared on Aurecon’s Just Imagine blog.
that scale to the whole planet.”

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