Artificial Intelligence and the Golden Rule
How does the Golden Rule apply to developers of artificial intelligence (AI)?
To simplify the application let’s assume there are only two people involved. One runs a small trucking company but also knows how to develop sophisticated AI. This business owner develops an AI enabled system capable of driving his truck. The other person is the truck driver, whom the owner no longer needs. If the owner believed in following the Golden Rule, how should he treat his driver?
Let’s assume the driver has worked for the company for forty years but is not yet financially ready to retire. A number of answers are possible. Some companies have bridged long-time employees to retirement. The owner might do that for his driver. Some companies have given generous severance packages with various re-employment services. The owner might choose that path. Most would agree that an owner who believed in the Golden Rule would take some actions that soften the impact of bringing in AI and replacing a worker. About the only wrong answer would be keeping all the profit enabled by the use of AI and letting the long-time employee suffer the full impact of being replaced.
Too often the other Golden Rule is applied: “He who has the gold rules!” When this happens, little, or no, effort is made to soften the impact. All the profits enabled by AI are kept for the business executives and investors. No law requires an employer to soften the blow of being replaced by AI but ethically that is what the Golden Rule instructs us to do.
In reality our scenario involves far more than two people. There are the development teams that develop AI-enabled products. The technology developers work at the direction of their managers, who are seeking to serve the interests of the company’s investors. The technology developed is likely sold to another company that uses the AI technology as a component part of a system they are making. The system is then sold to a third company that provides the service enabled by the AI. The negative impacts of the AI-enabled system are typically brought to individuals through an equally complicated set of relationships. In the complex real-world situation, who is responsible for thinking of their neighbor and how are they to fulfill their ethical responsibility?
The point at which multiple parties are involved, the ethical consideration encounters political and economic theory. With distributed ethical responsibility to treat your neighbor as you would be treated, should that responsibility be made mandatory? If so, who enforces it? Should the government act as an intermediary, transferring money from the beneficiaries to the victims of technology? Who decides how much compensation is adequate reimbursement for the harm suffered? These are complex questions with multiple possible answers. However, the core teaching of the Golden Rule still applies. We should have a concern for those our actions impact. When the impact is negative, we should take steps to mitigate the harm done. The Golden Rule teaches that we should think about others and take actions that minimize any harm to them.
When thinking of the impact of new technology, the transient impacts of introduction, the permanent impacts, and the future impacts must be considered. You sometimes hear, “Well in the long run it works out.” Yes, but in the very long run we are all dead! Putting people out of a job may resolve itself in time but a lot depends on how the disruption is managed.
Perhaps the metaphor of a new self-driving car getting onto an interstate is appropriate.
