How robots can learn to follow a moral code; Nature, October 26, 2023

 Neil Savage, Nature; How robots can learn to follow a moral code

"Many computer scientists are investigating whether autonomous systems can be taught to make ethical choices, or to promote behaviour that aligns with human values. Could a robot that provides care, for example, be trusted to make choices in the best interests of its charges? Or could an algorithm be relied on to work out the most ethically appropriate way to distribute a limited supply of transplant organs? Drawing on insights from cognitive science, psychology and moral philosophy, computer scientists are beginning to develop tools that can not only make AI systems behave in specific ways, but also perhaps help societies to define how an ethical machine should act...

Defining ethics

The ability to fine-tune an AI system’s behaviour to promote certain values has inevitably led to debates on who gets to play the moral arbiter. Vosoughi suggests that his work could be used to allow societies to tune models to their own taste — if a community provides examples of its moral and ethical values, then with these techniques it could develop an LLM more aligned with those values, he says. However, he is well aware of the possibility for the technology to be used for harm. “If it becomes a free for all, then you’d be competing with bad actors trying to use our technology to push antisocial views,” he says.

Precisely what constitutes an antisocial view or unethical behaviour, however, isn’t always easy to define. Although there is widespread agreement about many moral and ethical issues — the idea that your car shouldn’t run someone over is pretty universal — on other topics there is strong disagreement, such as abortion. Even seemingly simple issues, such as the idea that you shouldn’t jump a queue, can be more nuanced than is immediately obvious, says Sydney Levine, a cognitive scientist at the Allen Institute. If a person has already been served at a deli counter but drops their spoon while walking away, most people would agree it’s okay to go back for a new one without waiting in line again, so the rule ‘don’t cut the line’ is too simple."

Ethicist: Coronavirus reduces complex moral codes to the essential — protect your neighbor; USA Today, August 17, 2020

Tom Cooper, USA Today; Ethicist: Coronavirus reduces complex moral codes to the essential — protect your neighbor

"It is time not only for increased ethics education and learning from the best practices of the great ones. It is time to wake up our leaders and ourselves.  

Our complex moral codes can be simplified rather quickly these days: “Wash your hands." “Wear your mask.” “Stand six feet apart.” Behold, the Ten Commandments are reduced to three."

The World According to Team Walt; New York Times, 9/28/13

Ross Douthat, New York Times; The World According to Team Walt: "In the online realms where hit shows are dissected, critics who pass judgment on Walt’s sins find themselves tangling with a multitude of commenters who don’t think he needs forgiveness... The allure for Team Walt is not ultimately the pull of nihilism, or the harmless thrill of rooting for a supervillain. It’s the pull of an alternative moral code, neither liberal nor Judeo-Christian, with an internal logic all its own. As James Bowman wrote in The New Atlantis, embracing Walt doesn’t requiring embracing “individual savagery” and a world without moral rules. It just requires a return to “old rules” — to “the tribal, family-oriented society and the honor culture that actually did precede the Enlightenment’s commitment to universal values.” Those rules seem cruel by the lights of both cosmopolitanism and Christianity, but they are not irrational or necessarily false. Their Darwinian logic is clear enough, and where the show takes place — in the shadow of cancer, the shadow of death — the kindlier alternatives can seem softheaded, pointless, naïve."