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Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: AI Ethical Issues & Principles

Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

We are entering a new era of content generation with the development of text-generating AI tools like GPT-3 and GPT-4, image-generating AI tools like DALLE 2 and Stable Diffusion, voice-generating AI tools like Microsoft’s VALL-E, and everything else that hasn’t been released yet. And a number of complex ethical problems are associated with it. 

Globally, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has opened up a wide range of options, from making medical diagnosis easier to enhancing human interactions through social media and automating chores to reducing labor costs.

It’s simple to see what potential this technology has for both corporations and individual creators. Instead of using pixels or paint, generative AI enables text painting. Through automatically generated messages, emails, and content, it allows you to communicate with customers on the business side effectively. Generative AI, when properly implemented, can improve existing workflows by adding precision, power, speed, and convenience, freeing up workers to concentrate on more strategic or creative aspects of their work.

Challenges in AI Ethics

But these quick developments also give rise to serious AI ethical questions (Challenges in AI Ethics). These result from the potential for AI systems to introduce biases, contribute to climate change, endanger human rights, and other things. These AI-related hazards have already started to accumulate on top of already-existing disparities, harming already marginalized groups even more.

Artificial intelligence also opens the door to new questions about ethics and responsibility in the digital age. 

What are AI ethics?

Artificial intelligence ethics refers to the concerns that stakeholders must take into account to make sure that the technology is created and applied responsibly. This entails approaching AI in a manner that is secure, ethical, humanistic, and environmentally responsible. 

AI ethics can include things like preventing bias, protecting user and data privacy, and reducing environmental dangers.

AI ethics are sometimes known as computational ethics or machine ethics. It is frequently unclear what defines “good” or “bad” behavior for AI algorithms because the field is still in its infancy. 

Principles for AI Ethics

The goal of the principles for AI ethics is to safeguard society from the unfavorable effects of artificial intelligence. These guidelines seek to safeguard the economy, the environment, and the people. 

Four primary areas make up AI ethics: 

  1. Safety is the ability of an AI to prevent harm to people. This involves refraining from harming others physically or using foul language. It also covers matters like preserving privacy and intellectual property rights. 
  1. Security: This relates to how successfully an AI can defend itself against attacks or avoid being exploited in any way by other systems. Additionally, it refers to an AI’s capacity to defend itself against human manipulation or hacking.
  1. Privacy: This refers to how much information an AI system has about you, how it obtains that information, how it stores it, the tools it uses to analyze it, etc. Basically, any technological corporation uses and shares anything relevant to your personal information! 
  1. Fairness: This is the question of whether or not your rights as a customer are upheld when using a company’s services or goods. 

Examples of AI ethical dilemmas

1. Biased AI

The tendency of algorithms to mirror human prejudices is referred to as machine learning bias, also known as algorithm bias or artificial intelligence bias.

For instance, because more of this type of data has been used in training, a facial recognition algorithm may be trained to identify white people more quickly than black people. People from minority groups may suffer because discrimination thwarts equal opportunity and sustains oppression.

Another example; A page of ladies and girls dressed in various sexified costumes will most likely appear when you search for “school girl” in images. Surprisingly, the majority of the results for “school boy” will be of regular, young school boys. Almost no men, if any, wear sexualized costumes.

2. AI in the Court of Law

There are more ethical issues to consider when AI is used more frequently in court systems throughout the world. AI might be able to assess cases and administer justice in a better, quicker, and more effective manner than a judge. 

Some claim that, by utilizing its speed and vast data ingestion, AI might contribute to the creation of a more equitable criminal justice system, in which machines could analyze and weigh pertinent elements better than humans. As a result, AI would make impartial judgements that are free from subjectivity and bias. 

But there are various ethical challenges such as:

  • AI is not unbiased; decisions made with AI are prone to errors, discriminating results, and inbuilt or injected bias.
  • Lack of transparency in AI tools: Humans cannot always understand AI decisions.
  • surveillance procedures for data collection and user privacy in courts.
  • Human rights and other core values are now at jeopardy and there are new worries about fairness.

Would you prefer to have a robot judge you in a court of law? Would you, despite the fact that we are unsure of how it comes to its conclusions?

3. AI in Art

Human illustrators, designers, and other creative professionals lose their employment to AI Art, which utilizes their work to produce what it refers to as “new work” without their permission or payment. It also diminishes the years of effort, distinctive vision, talent, and expertise that human artists put forth.

However, the US copyright office has thus far ruled that AI photographs are ineligible for copyright registration because they lack human authorship. Given that they developed the program that generated the image, it’s possible that the AI software’s developers are the real owners of the copyright.

4. Autopilot Cars

Autopilot Cars are ones that can sense their surroundings and move with little to no human intervention. Numerous various sensors must constantly collect a vast amount of data in order for the car to operate safely and comprehend its driving environment. The computer system for autonomous driving in the car then processes these. 

The self-driving vehicle must also go through a significant quantity of training in order to comprehend the data it is gathering and be capable of making the best choice in any conceivable traffic circumstance.

Everyday moral choice are made by everyone. The moral choice to shift risk from the pedestrian to the occupants in the automobile is made when a driver slams on the brakes to avoid colliding with a jaywalker.

Imagine a driverless automobile with faulty brakes hurtling toward a grandmother and a young child at high speed. One may be saved by veering off course slightly.

This time, the choice will be made by the car’s algorithm rather than a human driver. 

Which one, the grandmother or the child, would you pick? Do you believe there is only one correct response? 

This classic moral conundrum demonstrates the significance of ethics in the advancement of technology.

The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (Al): Do’s and Don’ts

Here are some do’s and don’ts and improvements in the usage of AI;

Do considers the risk environment
Don’t Treat every situation involving Al the same way

Do tell people when you use Al to create or supplement work
Don’t assume accuracy from Al-generated content and images

Do consider the copyright implications of using Al
Don’t Ignore biases in Al-generated content and images

Do Have a human review all Al-generated work
Don’t Prompt Al to say or do harmful or biased things

—by zapier

What are common unethical AI examples?

  • Clearview Artificial Intelligence facial recognition technology
  • Smart speakers listening to you
  • Instagram’s skin-showing Artificial Intelligence algorithm
  • Deepfake videos
  • Tracking shoppers

Institutes for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence

Here I am mentioning a few institutes for learning ethics in Artificial Intelligence;

  1. The Economic Advantage of Ethical Design For Business

The beginning course teaches students how to integrate AI into firms’ innovation processes on a comprehensive level. The lesson plan also makes suggestions for who within the organization should carry out these initiatives.

  1. Artificial Intelligence Ethics by Oxford University

The introductory course covers the basic concepts of AI ethics and addresses ethical issues around the adoption of AI in our everyday life.  

  1. Ethics of AI-University of Helsinki

Anyone interested in the ethical implications of AI and who wants to learn what can and cannot be done to develop AI in a way that is ethically sustainable can take the free online course offered by the University of Helsinki.

  1. Artificial Intelligence Ethics Certification

Three modules make up the Udemy one-hour on-demand video certification course. The history of ethics, corporate ethics, and the five most prevalent principles are covered in the first section. 

References:

AI ethics: The ethical issues of artificial intelligence
AI Bias – What Is It and How to Avoid It? 
Artificial Intelligence: examples of ethical dilemmas
What Are the Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
Washington Post. “Your selfies are helping AI learn. You did not consent to this
Common ethical challenges in AI


image credits: freepik.com

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