How Humanity Survives and Thrives

We human beings dominate our planet, not because of our powerful bodies but because we cooperate together in large numbers, even with strangers. What is it that sets us apart in being able to do this? You will say Intelligence and language? You are right, because these allow us to quickly adapt, and to agree on how we cooperate when circumstances change. However, equally important is another capability we have, which is a sense of ethics.

The foundation of cooperation is ethical behavior. When others cross the line and do not cooperate with us, we become upset and take careful note, for our wellbeing and survival is threatened. Culturally we human beings prepare our young for mature responsibility (think agency) with ethical stories, but evidence suggests we are born with an instinctive sense of morality. In any case, our survival has - and continues to depend on ethics.

AI researchers and developers are now providing machine intelligence with the capacity for autonomous action. The potential for AI to create a prosperous future is real. Yet machines do not have the implicit guard-rails of ethical culture and instinct that humans take for granted. This means that machines can easily cross the line - to unhesitatingly act in harmful and uncooperative ways. This is why we may feel uneasy and pause to consider how autonomous machines will impact our wellbeing and survival, as we try use them to create a better future. 

We already have lists of autonomous systems causing harm, sometimes glaringly, and sometimes in unforeseen ways; with systems that work very well but within a scope that turns out to have been narrow-minded, thus producing unforeseen harm in the larger context of the world.

It is the ethical machine, rather than the intelligent machine that we need to carefully design and create. How do we go about creating responsible trustworthy machines? What are the steps we can take right now, to mitigate the risk of our creating autonomous and ethically oblivious systems?