Programming Machine Ethics

This book addresses the fundamentals of machine ethics. It discusses abilities required for ethical machine reasoning and the programming features that enable them. It connects ethics, psychological ethical processes, and machine implemented procedures. From a technical point of view, the book uses logic programming and evolutionary game theory to model and link the individual and collective moral realms. It also reports on the results of experiments performed using several model implementations. Opening specific and promising inroads into the terra incognita of machine ethics, the authors define here new tools and describe a variety of program-tested moral applications and implemented systems. In addition, they provide alternative readings paths, allowing readers to best focus on their specific interests and to explore the concepts at different levels of detail. Mainly written for researchers in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, robotics, philosophy of technology and engineering of ethics, the book will also be of general interest to other academics, undergraduates in search of research topics, science journalists as well as science and society forums, legislators and military organizations concerned with machine ethics.

This book offers the first systematic guide to machine ethics, bridging between computer science, social sciences and philosophy. Based on a dialogue between an AI scientist and a novelist philosopher, the book discusses important findings on which moral values machines can be taught and how. In turn, it investigates what kind of artificial intelligence (AI) people do actually want. What are the main consequences of the integration of AI in people’s every-day life? In order to co-exist and collaborate with humans, machines need morality, but which moral values should we teach them? Moreover, how can we implement benevolent AI? These are just some of the questions carefully examined in the book, which offers a comprehensive account of ethical issues concerning AI, on the one hand, and a timely snapshot of the power and potential benefits of this technology on the other. Starting with an introduction to common-sense ethical principles, the book then guides the reader, helping them develop and understand more complex ethical concerns and placing them in a larger, technological context. The book makes these topics accessible to a non-expert audience, while also offering alternative reading pathways to inspire more specialized readers.

The new field of machine ethics is concerned with giving machines ethical principles, or a procedure for discovering a way to resolve the ethical dilemmas they might encounter, enabling them to function in an ethically responsible manner through their own ethical decision making. Developing ethics for machines, in contrast to developing ethics for human beings who use machines, is by its nature an interdisciplinary endeavor. The essays in this volume represent the first steps by philosophers and artificial intelligence researchers toward explaining why it is necessary to add an ethical dimension to machines that function autonomously, what is required in order to add this dimension, philosophical and practical challenges to the machine ethics project, various approaches that could be considered in attempting to add an ethical dimension to machines, work that has been done to date in implementing these approaches, and visions of the future of machine ethics research.

Once the stuff of science fiction, recent progress in artificial intelligence, robotics, and machine learning means that these rapidly advancing technologies are finally coming into widespread use within everyday life. Such rapid development in these areas also brings with it a host of social, political and legal issues, as well as a rise in public concern and academic interest in the ethical challenges these new technologies pose. This volume is a collection of scholarly work from leading figures in the development of both robot ethics and machine ethics; it includes essays of historical significance which have become foundational for research in these two new areas of study, as well as important recent articles. The research articles selected focus on the control and governance of computational systems; the exploration of ethical and moral theories using software and robots as laboratories or simulations; inquiry into the necessary requirements for moral agency and the basis and boundaries of rights; and questions of how best to design systems that are both useful and morally sound. Collectively the articles ask what the practical ethical and legal issues, arising from the development of robots, will be over the next twenty years and how best to address these future considerations.

As the utilization of intelligent machines spreads to numerous realms, the discourse of machine ethics has also developed and expanded. Concerns over machine intelligence and the role of automata in everyday life must be addressed before artificial intelligence and robotic technologies may be fully integrated into human society. Rethinking Machine Ethics in the Age of Ubiquitous Technology blends forward-looking, constructive, and interdisciplinary visions of ethical ideals, aims, and applications of machine technology. This visionary reference work incorporates ethical conversations in the fields of technology, computer science, robotics, and the medical industry, creating a vibrant dialogue between philosophical ideals and the applied sciences. With its broad scope of relevant topics, this book serves as an excellent tool for policymakers, academicians, researchers, advanced-level students, technology developers, and government officials. This timely publication features thoroughly researched articles on the topics of artificial moral agency, cyber-warfare, transhumanism, organic neural nets, human worker replacement, automaticity and global governance, security and surveillance, military drones, and more.

This book constitutes the refereed conference proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Inductive Logic Programming, ILP 2019, held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, in September 2019. The 11 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) is a subfield of machine learning, which originally relied on logic programming as a uniform representation language for expressing examples, background knowledge and hypotheses. Due to its strong representation formalism, based on first-order logic, ILP provides an excellent means for multi-relational learning and data mining, and more generally for learning from structured data.

The essays in this book, written by researchers from both humanities and science, describe various theoretical and experimental approaches to adding medical ethics to a machine, what design features are necessary in order to achieve this, philosophical and practical questions concerning justice, rights, decision-making and responsibility in medical contexts, and accurately modeling essential physician-machine-patient relationships. In medical settings, machines are in close proximity with human beings: with patients who are in vulnerable states of health, who have disabilities of various kinds, with the very young or very old and with medical professionals. Machines in these contexts are undertaking important medical tasks that require emotional sensitivity, knowledge of medical codes, human dignity and privacy. As machine technology advances, ethical concerns become more urgent: should medical machines be programmed to follow a code of medical ethics? What theory or theories should constrain medical machine conduct? What design features are required? Should machines share responsibility with humans for the ethical consequences of medical actions? How ought clinical relationships involving machines to be modeled? Is a capacity for empathy and emotion detection necessary? What about consciousness? This collection is the first book that addresses these 21st-century concerns.

"Moral Machines is a fine introduction to the emerging field of robot ethics. There is much here that will interest ethicists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, and roboticists." ---Peter Danielson, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews --