Let's embed ethics into the machine

We have been upgrading our human software for tens of thousands of years. The upgrade was slow at first, but since the advent of writing, the printed word and most recently, the Internet, we humans have added speed. Continuous Integration, to borrow a computing term, is probably around the corner for our human operating system. With each step, moving to farming, moving to ships that sail the world, to the industrial revolution, we have increased the speed of technological growth and stretched our social and cognitive abilities. Humans are arguably struggling to cope in a fast paced technological world, why so do we struggle to band together to save our planet from our own destruction? We seem incapable of global solidarity on issues that affect our greater selves. We seem incapable. perhaps immobilized to act due to our limited global cognitive abilities or perhaps our freedom to act selfishly. Whatever the reasons are, perhaps it is something we can address as a society.

In part, we still have a rudimentary cave-man brain, and in part we have instincts of other animals, but we live in a large global village, not a small farming community. Our interactions, facial recognition, lie telling, psychology and social abilities are not designed for space-travel distances, living alone or being exposed to millions of people cancelling you out, because of a small mistake. A mistake that would be healed in a village, that may be forgotten in a couple of years, but now, you will never work again and it will be on record, pretty much forever. We seem to respond to immediate threats like the aftermath of an earthquake or a tornado in the village. As a species, we come together at that moment and do remarkable things, yet we don't seem to have the foresight for 10 years into the future. Somehow, we cannot expand our empathy and reasoning, even if it means certain death. Empathy seems to be one trait that grew and is now fading again.

Whether it’s the vastness of distance, or the disconnection from real-life due to it being shown on a screen, we may never truly understand why we are slowly losing empathy. Of course, we were not designed to feel empathy for hundreds of millions of people as we do our immediate family and perhaps our tribe. What in our modern world is creating more sociopaths? What part of society is creating a child of 15 years, to go out and shoot an automatic rifle at his classmates? The desire for fame and attention? Perhaps a feeling of not belonging?

Culture and Religion has moulded our existence, our sense of being and identity. Some argue that morals are being lost due to a loss in these religious influences but the modern world has improved greatly as a result of less religious influence. By reasoning of less crusades, witch hunts or simply a woman's right to be equal to a man, and of course systemic attacks on science. For millions of people have found that morals without influence of religion is perhaps more stable as it does not have any fear or coercion as its driver, but rather a sense of duty and respect for all life. We are slowly providing more rights to animals, and we are expanding freedoms to people of different sexual orientation. We are realising that we still have serious issues, baked in from our past, like racial inequality and privilege. But there are many groups in our history who have realized these things and have campaigned for freedoms, often against the majority, for which the human social condition is a really slow burn, often clinging to "bad" morals from yesteryear.

There are many advantages to our technology and our science, and many disadvantages too. There is greater speed, wealth, but perhaps also despair and those cut out of the process altogether. Technologies may not yet have any ability to be truly “evil” in itself, but human agency and our manufactured environments provide access to good and also bad results. It is of course possible that both religion and science has not yet answered the questions that all this technology is throwing at us and perhaps our social contracts may require an upgrade as well. What is clear, is that the advancement of technology is faster than our human laws and ethics can handle. This gap is also perhaps not at its widest, with a massive leap still to come. As a species, we have not yet grasped the fact, subjective truth is ours to improve. Our subjectivity is not set in stone, but a transient position, one which possibly requires agility of mind to actively modify. Philosophers cite reasons for cultures being different, for ethics to be changeable by nations and various religions and this is the state of affairs, neglecting that all of these systems were different before, and are subjective in this moment. It is all relative. As with all things, we can be bystanders, or we can get involved. Perhaps this is the time to get involved with our own social evolution?

Humanity is on the cusp of perhaps the most amazing technological advances yet, that may perhaps rival or surpass all that has come before. We are on a road leading to telepathy, a reimagining of what we think privacy is, automated helpers and perhaps for this first time, an invention that is smarter than us. If our trajectory continues we may have a superintelligent machine in a couple of decades or even if it's a century away, we know we will be faced with new questions from our technology. Our technological questions may be voiced for the first time, by the actual technology itself.

If the technology becomes capable of creating technology itself, then how do we think about agency? Is the machine capable of it, should it be allowed, are we it’s slaves, or will it be benevolent and treat us not like ants, but like partners? Whether it is AI or simply technology, we have to be mindful of how it is used o perhaps how it intends itself to be. To date, we have relied on social conventions and ultimately laws to determine who and what is done with a technology. We have tried to withhold nuclear weapons from some and maintained in the hands of others. We have licenses for weapons, but the USA is by far a culture of guns more than any other, much is to its detriment. It will continue to fight for the freedom to bear arms, despite it being a truly negative aspect of it's society. Is it ok? Is this not the freedoms we are searching for? If it is, and the freedoms are to our own destruction, one could argue that such freedoms are not desirable. Perhaps this is not a position one holds, and perhaps its not simply your standpoint versus mine, but perhaps it's something we should be considering as a species, not as individuals. This is a vastly difficult consideration.

However, moving forward, should we not prepare and plan our use of technologies and perhaps not leave socio-economic and technological fallout at the hands of organic evolution? Should we be designing our technology and our social contracts? Would it not be prudent to help guide ourselves to a future we all want? Even if we could only steer ourselves one degree towards better, is that not what we should do? After all, if we do not have a plan and a roadmap, what would the machine which is designing other machines, which is more intelligent than us, do? Should we simply leave this to chance?

The question becomes a polarizing decision, a dichotomy of which you can easily decide. Do you want to decide and enact the future of humanity or do you want, a come what may?

I stand on the decisive path of action. I think we can make decisions. I feel we can get the world to create a set of standard ethics, by which the global community begins to live by. I think we should start designing our human operating system. This would be the first time, we collectively create a set of ethics we can subjectively and iteratively move into our future. It may be something we could place into our technologies, so that it acts in accordance to that system. Perhaps we can embed our ethics into the machine, for the greater good of us all.