Topic Selection
The chosen topic is related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ethical issues raised by this emerging technology. Nowadays, the technology of artificial intelligence is applied in various spheres of human life. Popular nowadays E-commerce often uses AI to allow customers to buy online and find relevant advertising on digital platforms and social media. Even though AI seems a distant futuristic concept, this software has already been rooted deeply in everyday life through smartphones, personal assistants, drones, not to mention autonomous cars and robots. Thus, it would be impossible for people to stop using all the helpful services and gadgets constructed on an AI basis. Technological progress went far beyond our imagination, and AI became an indispensable companion in everyday life. However, only a few people are concerned with the possible threats that technological progress brings. Therefore, the development of the concept of artificial intelligence raises many ethical issues about humans’ rights and their usefulness to society.
The most worrying ethical problems are the decline of the job roles value and all-encompassing surveillance that encroaches on individuals’ civil liberties and contradicts ethical principles. Society has always tended to automatization of manual labor. If artificial intelligence is applied in the future to perform physical work, many people can become unemployed and will have to take professional training to meet society’s changing technologically-conditioned needs. The problem of surveillance has a severe impact on human life perception. Therefore, with AI’s widespread implementation, people’s private liberties and ethical values are in great danger.
Annotated Bibliography
Desmond, Ned. The Threat of Artificial Intelligence. First Things, 2021.
The scientific publication is devoted to discussing the threats of AI to society. The paper raises various problems of AI implementation and provides substantial evidence based on social experience and cultural events. The article evaluates the possible public and personal privacy dangers and encourages people to be cautious while using technologies. The source is highly relevant for the moral and ethical exploration of AI implementation.
Meredith, Moris. “Viewpoint AI and Accessibility: A Discussion of Ethical Considerations.” Communications of the ACM, vol. 63, no. 6, 2020, pp. 35–37.
The article focuses on discussing the role of society’s AI awareness and education as well as the legal regulations analyzing the recent online platforms. The paper includes possible human rights violations and proposes increasing users’ awareness of AI ethical problems solutions. Technological education is vital for social development and safety aspects and is essential to address while discussing the ethical issues raised by AI.
Sharma, Sujeet, et al. “Okay Google, What About My Privacy: User’s Privacy Perceptions and Acceptance of Voice-Based Digital Assistants.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 120, 2021, pp. 1–2.
The article emphasizes the ethical problem of social networking sites’ privacy and searches security. Conducting the empirical research, the author collected the privacy settings of two voice searching assistants. The practical privacy calculations while searching are presented in this paper. The article’s empirical information supports the theoretical theory about the AI implementation threats with reliable facts. The paper states the ethical issues raised by the held research without offering possible solutions.
Shneiderman, Ben. “Human-Centered AI Computer Scientists Should Build Devices to Enhance and Empower Not Replace Humans.” Issues in Science & Technology, vol. 37, no. 2, 2021, pp. 56–62.
The article is devoted to exploring the ethical dangers of AI perception. Addressing outstanding personalities’ philosophical ideas, Shneiderman discusses the possible threats of AI to society’s morality. The author of the article also encourages creators to reconsider the role of AI in their life and emphasizes the necessity to preserve traditional ethics in the age of technological advancement and AI widespread usage for commercial aims.
Policy Paper
Society often considers artificial intelligence implementation as a dramatic increase in technological progress. Terminal illnesses treatment, labor automatization, and other various positive aspects of this technology will change human lives for the better. The impact of this emerging technology is, without a doubt, tremendous even today and will transform society’s moral set-ups and values in the future. This change in priorities can raise significant moral and sometimes even legal issues that contradict traditional ethics. Thus, the AI can provoke ethical problems regarding the working roles devastation, violating human privacy and freedom of expression rights.
In order to discuss the ethical problems raised by the AI implementation, the starting point of moral-adequate behavior should be emphasized. The most definitive morality theory which is logically suitable to the discussion of AI impact is virtue ethics because it focuses on the personal peculiarities of the human character but not on the behavior rules. Addressing this concept, the first issue to elaborate on is the job’s role in devastation. The human being, from the very beginning of civilization, strived to facilitate manual labor. Thus, in terms of alleviating the working process, AI implementation seems a great possibility to make this long-established human dream come true.
However, considering the virtue ethics concepts, the work contributes to forming positive moral character traits in human life. Labor is precisely one of the spheres where humans can prove that their actions are committed to virtue. However, when considering AI implementation in industrial practices, a considerable part of society will lose their value as workers because their professions will be redundant due to modern technologies (Desmond). Thus, people will lack the opportunity to develop virtuous characteristics and, before getting the new profession, will have no value to society.
The second ethical issue is connected with people’s privacy settings. In order to be decent members of society, people will have to obtain the knowledge necessary to use AI in their everyday life (Meredith 36). However, as people have already learned from widespread Internet usage, they have to provide the system with personal data to access most services. Wide AI usage will provoke even higher data flow, which will provide access for malicious users who can violate human privacy (Shneiderman 57). Thus, considering virtue ethics, AI implementation is dangerous for both the technology creators and users. The first category of people develops negative skills such as manipulation and malicious profit-centered actions. In contrast, the second will suffer from the inappropriate attitude, and the role of human life and personality development will be significantly weakened.
The rights to freedom of expression and privacy are essential in any political system legislation and are at a high risk of being violated because of the widespread AI usage. The social media artificial intelligence algorithms are often devoted to tracking the prohibited behavior on the particular platform, eliminating violators’ profiles, or limiting their activity (Sharma 1). However, the fact that people program artificial intelligence to control others means that the original moral norms come not from the people themselves who strive to develop virtue character peculiarities but from the creators of this technology. Using artificial intelligence, they can transform the moral rules to suit their own needs.
Moreover, the AI systems can be programmed to skip particular types of communication like slang, thereby treating users’ activity as a prohibited action. This process will cause significant difficulties in minor groups’ online communication and even harm their self-identification as a part of society. Thus, this can lead a community to particular minorities discrimination, which is actively fought today by many countries. Therefore, the AI implementation may violate users’ freedom of expression rights from legal and ethical points of view.
Privacy rights are also at significant risk of being violated due to AI usage. The overall surveillance and internet behavior tracking technologies are originally designed to protect human rights. However, they also allow the vast leak of personal data and access to the civic space (Meredith 36). Today, the advertisement tracking AI analyses the users’ behavior and offers them only suitable for their needs services. This process makes shopping and other daily activities much easier for people. These technological advancements are genuinely astonishing and are possible only thanks to AI-based programs. However, this process also means that creators can learn any information about people and use it for malicious aims.
Moreover, the AI always accompanies users in their lives, which, considering the fact that humans initially designed this program for particular purposes, can cause moral uneasiness and anxiety. The governmental organizations are responsible for controlling the AI implementation and ensuring ethics, from the rule of law and ethics perspectives, this technology is advancing (Meredith 37). Thus, the moral and legal threats can be minimized by the appropriate governmental regulations.
Therefore, as far as addressing the ethical issues of AI is an essential responsibility of the government, and a particular policy should be proposed. The government should pass legislation that requires all the organizations which plan to implement AI systems to gain the ethical certificate, which is given after getting more than 75 percent in the ethics evaluation. The possible difficulties are that the program devoted to the ethics system evaluation creation should include the objective limitations for the AI usage and require significant investments. A particular ethical concept such as virtue ethics should become the core principle of estimating technology and be approved by the public in order to avoid commercially beneficial intentions. As a result of such technology, the problems of malicious data usage and privacy violations will be solved. This policy will restrict AI’s unlimited opportunities and manage it by respecting ethics and human rights.
Artificial intelligence is an emerging technology that will lead society to another level of technological advancement. Under AI-based technologies, society will reconsider some moral values and change attitudes towards the rule of law. Even though these changes are unavoidable, people should never diminish the role of human morale and privacy. Treating personal development as a way to become a decent member of society implies respectful attitudes to others. The government is responsible for the adequate regulation of the implementation of the innovation and supporting policy ensuring the society’s ethics development.
Works Cited
Desmond, Ned. The Threat of Artificial Intelligence. First Things, 2021, Web.
Meredith, Moris. “Viewpoint AI and Accessibility: A Discussion of Ethical Considerations.” Communications of the ACM, vol. 63, no. 6, 2020, pp. 35–37. Web.
Sharma, Sujeet, et al. “Okay Google, What About My Privacy: User’s Privacy Perceptions and Acceptance of Voice-Based Digital Assistants.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 120, 2021, pp. 1–2. Web.
Shneiderman, Ben. “Human-Centered AI Computer Scientists Should Build Devices to Enhance and Empower Not Replace Humans.” Issues in Science & Technology, vol. 37, no. 2, 2021, pp. 56–62. Web.