IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 29

personal. In start-up companies deploying drones, for example, the
founder's morals steer influences
whether to deploy a machine for
global good (weather, agriculture, or
rescue missions) or to aid particular
nation-states' defense, surveillance,
or border control strategies. As consumers and as a society, are we prepared for a software developer, or a
company, to be the guardian of our
moral sensibility?
AI has the potential to greatly
improve the human condition. While
there may be arguments against the
deployment of certain machines
and uses of AI technologies, such as
facial recognition in autonomous
weapons, the underlying technology
itself is neutral. Moral considerations must extend before deployment to the design and development
of autonomous machines and AI
techniques. Ethics should be a core
subject in science, business, and
engineering course curricula. Standards, both internal for companies
developing technologies and external for industries where such technologies are deployed, will assist in
setting governance frameworks and
best practice. Data used to train the
algorithm must be clean, correctly
labeled, and reflective of a diverse
and inclusive user base. Robust
testing must be carried out prior to
deployment and companies should
have the processes to demonstrate,
albeit internally, that the ethical
implications of algorithmic decisions
have been sufficiently contemplated and mitigation steps put in place.

JUNE 2018

The transitory and subjective nature of mora l
inclinations requires ongoIn the near future, more and
ing evaluation [9] and iteration of the algorithmic
more of us will be faced with
training to ensure that the
the consequences of autonomous
output continues to resonate broadly with societal
decision-making machines.
norms. Humans, however,
are fallible, and morality
is a human construct that
is subject to change. Despite an
[3] J. Prinz, "Morality is a culturally conditioned response," Philosophy Now, 2011.
engineer's best efforts to train and
[Online]. Available: https://philosophynow
test an algorithm prior to release,
.org/issues/82/Morality_is_a_Culturally_
there may be edge cases in which
Conditioned_Response.
[4] J.-F. Bonnefon, A. Shariff, and I. Rahwan,
the outcome affronts our (individual
"The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles,"
and collective) moral principles. As
Science, 2016. [Online]. Available: http://
a society, we are generally acceptscience.sciencemag.org/content/352/6293/
1573?variant=fulltext&sso=1&sso_redirect_
ing of human error. We are less
count=1&oauth-code=a7f278ef-c324-41a1forgiving of technology. When pre9c02-b89ad24f091d#ref-22.
sented with hard, ethical dilemmas,
[5] R. Goldman, "No charges for Texas father
who beat to death daughter's molester,"
is it (morally) justified for humans
abcnews.go.com, 2012. [Online]. Available:
to demand a higher standard of a
http://abcnews.go.com/US/charges-texasmere machine?
father-beat-death-daughtersmolester/

Author Information
Krishna Sood is a senior lawyer
and an expert advisor to the U.K.'s
All Party Parliamentary Group on
Artificial Intelligence. The views expressed in the article are the author's own.

References

[1] A. Campolo et al., "AI Now 2017 Report,"
AINOW, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://
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1A9c3ZTCZa2KEYM64Wsc2a/8636557c
5fb14f2b74b2be64c3ce0c78/_AI_Now_
Institute_2017_Report_.pdf.
[2] B. Deng, "Machine ethics: The robot's
dilemma," Nature, 2015. [Online]. Available:
https://www.nature.com/news/machineethics-the-robot-s-dilemma-1.17881.

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

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on machine ethics," Moral Machine, M.I.T.,
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[7] H. Guldberg, "Only humans have morality,
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018