A Robot? Can I Trust It?
This week, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Team tackled the ethics behind artificial intelligence in the business world. Prior to the discussion of ethics, however, three main misconceptions about AI’s role in the workplace were addressed.
The first misconception is that AI does not need humans. Artificial Intelligence is still heavily dependent on data collected and observed by humans. Without humans, AI does not have any information to assess.
Another misconception is that AI outperforms human Intelligence in all aspects. While AI may have a higher productive efficiency than humans in terms of repetitive tasks, humans still thrive and remain more capable in terms of creating conversation, demonstrating emotional intelligence, and developing ethical skills.
Lastly, AI will not eliminate most jobs. While initial job loss may be experienced due to the rise of automation, industries will grow to adapt around AI. The long-term employment level will not change much, as many will simply shift industries or develop different skills. Evidence for this process can be found within the time of the 19th century Industrial Revolution, as humans transitioned to more mentally advanced fields of work upon the introduction of manufacturing machinery. Another aspect to the reality that human jobs will not be completely eliminated stems from the idea of comparative advantage. While AI may be better suited to perform certain tasks, such as manufacturing, humans are more efficient in producing other goods or performing other tasks, such as creative idea generation.
In terms of business operations, AI is applicable in a highly widespread range of industries. Automation and AI is currently present in manufacturing, retail trade, surveillance/security, and food service sectors, to name a few. From a global perspective, China and the United States lead the race in AI implementation in both business and military operations. The US and China are also closely followed by the UK, Russia, and Canada.
In the midst of all these advancements in artificial intelligence, how do we maintain proper ethical standards such that the growth is sustainable and does not cause negative externalities within the job market and overall economy? It is important for business leaders to understand the role of AI in the workplace, which is to merge and complement the work of humans. Thus, businesses should look to set baseline guidance and ethical codes for AI implementation. They must also be held responsible for understanding and addressing how AI affects the culture of the business. Governments can also help in the process, by creating universal frameworks for businesses to follow regarding AI implementation.
The team proceeded to have a healthy but involved debate afterwards regarding the applications of AI in the future and the ethics surrounding it. The first question asked how a future crisis, such as another pandemic, would impact the job market, assuming AI already played a large role in the industry. Overwhelmingly, the team reached the consensus that due to blue-collar work being automated away, there would be greater job stability. The idea was that the pandemic mostly harms work that involves personal contact, and with robots taking care of a lot of the work involving person-to-person contact (envision factory workers as an example), there would be less of an unemployment issue. However, the unemployment issue would still exist, as jobs that require a lot of emotional rationale and empathy, such as teachers, would not be as easily automatable. An interesting idea regarding universal basic income was also proposed, arguing that this form of guaranteed payment would support workers during an economic downturn.
The second facet of the discussion proved to be a more philosophical one, as now, the team faced the question of whether a consequentialist or deontological approach is the best when implementing artificial intelligence in the workplace.
For some context, consequentialism is the theory that only the end result matters in a process and the way one person reaches that end process is insignificant. For example, if a person lies to save someone’s life, consequentialism would approve of that action because the end result was favorable, regardless of any immoral actions to get there. Deontology provides the opposite perspective, as it states that the morality of an action matters as opposed to simply the consequence of that action. In this view, lying to save a person’s life would be immoral, as the person lied in the first place.
Transitioning back to artificial intelligence, the group had varied opinions to the consequentialism versus deontology issue. One prominent view was that companies should take a consequentialist view with AI, as inherently, they are profit-seeking and want the best result for their company with disregard for issues like worker layoffs. However, many team members countered this with a deontological viewpoint, arguing that in the long run, a deontological perspective might actually help companies, as investing in employees and boosting their morale encourages them to stay and work more productively. Furthermore, companies want to market the ethics of their process to encourage a better relationship with the customer and with their employees. Regardless, both sides were meaningful in their own right and spurred great discussion within the team.
The real implications of applying AI in the future and its ethical issues has brought great insight to the AI team, and the team hopes to draw on these understandings to delve deeper into the topic. The broad discussion of ethics this week can be narrowed down in future weeks to evaluating the ethics behind more specific AI technologies, such as virtual reality or autonomous cars. Additionally, this research has given the team leverage to understand new aspects of how AI might be applied in the future, such as with biotechnology like CRISPR. So when asked how AI might overturn the economy and the morality behind it, the AI team can employ the information learned to understand how to progress into a future with AI. AI is inevitable, but it is clear that society can progress into that future responsibly and carefully to mitigate economic and ethical issues. This way, AI can be viewed as a force of prosperity helping humans advance to a new era of work.