Source Sheet, #2
Sana Masud
Professor Dempster
UNIV 112
21 October 2014
Research Question: What is artificial intelligence? Is the creation of artificial
intelligence ethical?
MLA Citation: Yampolskiy, Roman V. "Artificial Intelligence Safety Engineering: Why
Machine Ethics Is a Wrong Approach." Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence.
By Vincent C. Müller. Heidelberg: Springer, 2013. 381-95. Springer Link. Web. 1 Nov.
2015.
Background: Roman V. Yampolskiy holds a PhD from the Univerisity of Buffalo. He is
a computer scientist at the University of Louisville, known for his work on behavioral
biometrics, security of cyberworlds and artificial intelligence safety.
Main Claim: Robots should be used only for the purpose of speed and efficiency and
should not reach human mental capacity.
Sub Claims:
1. Must create safety from self upgrading systems.
2. AGI research is unethical.
3. Machines should be imperfect so as not to overtake humanity
4. Machines should have a definite place in society below humans.
Evidence:
1. Ask robots safe questions with restricted answers (p 391)
a. A safe question is one that a human being can solve without
superintelligence
2. True AGIs will be capable of solving problems including self upgrading. As a
result, they have potential of outcompeting humans in any field making
humankind useless.
a. A truly AGI system may possess consciousness which makes robot
suffering a real concern. This makes any experiments on AGI unethical.
and any experiments with AGI unethical for that reason as well.
3. Designers must create a safety protocol in robots that hold through generations of
upgrades.
4. There is a set of principles that robot designers must follow in order to avoid
conflict. These principles are created by the Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council.
a. This also includes robots not being in the position to take life, a question
hotly debated as AIs are being used in the miliary
Quotations & Responses:
 “First, true AGIs will be capable of universal problem solving and recursive selfimprovement. Consequently they have potential of outcompeting humans in any
Source Sheet, #2
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domain essentially making humankind unnecessary and so subject to extinction.”
(p392) This states that the creation of self thinking robots itself is unethical. The
possibility of a free thinking robot creates allows the machine to think immorally,
as a human can. Creating this scenario is unjust.
“In general, a machine should never be in a position to terminate human life or to
make any other non trivial ethical or moral judgment concerning people.” (p 393)
This quote refutes source #3s debate on weather AI weapons should be used.
Creating a machine in charge of such an act creates and unsafe environment for
humans.
“While all humans are “created equal,” machines should be inferior by design;
they should have no rights and should be expendable as needed, making their use
as tools much more beneficial for their creators.” (p393) This quote explains that
robots should be used for just their task. The purpose of robots is to make a task
easier, so all machines should simply do that. Creating a machine that is not
expendable, or that machines should have no rights. Contradictory to Source #1
“If AGIs are allowed to develop there will be a direct competition between
superintelligent machines and people. Eventually the machines will come to
dominate because of their self-improvement capabilities. Alternatively people
may decide to give power to the machines since the machines are more capable
and less likely to make an error.” (392) This quote speaks to the inevitable
competition artificial intelligence will create between humans and robots. Robots
will always have the upper hand if given the capacity to do so.
Questions & Conclusions: This source starts an excellent conversation with my first
source. The source repeatedly makes the point that machines should not ever have
rights and should not be designed in a way that requires them to have rights.
Machines should just be the tools they are today. I would love to know more concrete
organizations or studies that have been conducted on AI. Because of its nonexistence,
it is hard to find evidence of any kind of robot feeling happening. Rather, it is
important to focus on ethical questions while the technology is being developed.