Duration: 8:05

7 views

0

The development of AI ethics must keep pace with innovation.
The ability of artificial intelligence to make ethically sound decisions is a hot topic in debates around the world. The issue is particularly prevalent in discussions on the future of autonomous cars, but it spans to include ethical conundrums similar to those depicted in sci-fi flicks like Blade Runner.

These high-level debates are mainly about a future that’s still years away, but it is true that AI is already becoming part of our lives. Think Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and the photo-sorting function on many smartphones. The popularity of technologies like these already influences how people think about machine intelligence. In a recent survey, 61 percent of respondents said society would become “better” or “much better” from increased automation and AI.

But getting to truly humanlike intelligence will take time. And the science must go hand-in-hand with thinking about the implications of creating intelligent machines — possibly to the level of robot rights and the nature of consciousness.

As AI innovation continues to move forward at warp speed, it will be important for the development of ethics surrounding the technology to keep up.