Automation and Ethics

Abstract

This chapter surveys aspects of automation in technology, its design, implementation, and usage, as they interact with values that underpin our society and its civilization. The framework chosen for this survey is that of moral or ethical theories and attitudes. To this avail we describe several of the ethical theories used currently to anchor discussions about values in our society. Several significant failures of automatic systems, including a fictional one, are quarried for ethical insights and lessons. The currently intractable nature of “neural networks” artificial intelligence systems trained via machine learning is shown to be a moral conundrum. The concepts of code of ethics and of ethical analysis are presented in some detail.