IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2023 - 72

Feature
He says that one need only apply this first principle
of utilitarianism when seeking to improve the rules
of morality, either so they can be applied to a novel
situation or to reassess their correctness in light of
new information. Since the effectiveness of robotics
and automation has drastically improved of late, and
since economists are discovering new relationships
between this technology and jobs, it is time for the
received wisdom about technological unemployment
to be retested.
The utilitarian approach to deciding if it is right
to develop job-replacing technology considers,
on the one side, the unhappiness of any workers
who would be unemployed plus the qualms of the
roboticist, and, on the other side, the income to
the roboticist and her employer plus the sense of
accomplishment tied to the creation of new tools.
It seems that in this case, the quantity and quality
of unhappiness outweigh that of happiness.
Again, this is in the current economic situation;
if changes like those mentioned in the previous
section are implemented, then the analysis would
be rerun.
As for the second question under consideration,
the moral calculus is a bit different. The
biggest change is that if the engineer chose not to
automate a job, then since the situation involves
the application of existing technology, there is a
large probability that someone else would be willing
and able to automate the task. Utilitarianism
in this case leads the engineer to conclude that,
" It's right to work in robotic automation because
if I don't do it, someone else will. " This type of justification
is at odds with people's moral intuition
though, and the fact that utilitarianism sometimes
provides such results is a criticism often leveled at
the theory.
This article cites evidence that robotization has
an overall negative impact on employment and
wages. Prescriptions offered in the literature are
systemic, such as offering programs for worker
retraining, ending the implicit subsidization of
machinery over labor, or funding a universal
basic income [3], [6], [13], [17], [36], [45]. One
problem with this approach is that, at least in the
country with the world's largest economy, " influence
over actual policy outcomes appears to be
reserved almost exclusively for those at the top of
the income distribution [46]. " Another problem is
that it does not offer guidance on what a roboticist
72
should do while waiting on such policies to be
enacted. Working to advance policies that ameliorate
income inequality might be a positive moral
action for roboticists, but individuals and professional
societies should also be making ethical
choices about the development and application
of job-replacing technology.
Major ethical theories are described and applied
in this article. Virtue ethics says that the ideal roboticist
will combine courage, truthfulness, and aspiration
with prudence to decide how to best promote
human flourishing. For two particular expressions
of the roboticist's choice, deontology is shown to
proscribe the development of new job-replacing
technology but to allow the application of existing
automation technology. Utilitarianism has similar
results.
A potential avenue for future work is the development
of a collective response for roboticists. For
example, outlining steps that professional societies
could take to meet their ethical responsibilities
regarding technological unemployment would be
worthwhile.
in The meanTime, it is hoped that this work can
help roboticists avoid a state in which they " are
actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So
they are focused on whether they can do something.
They never stop to ask if they should do
something " [47].

Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest: not applicable.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Karolin Mirzakhan, PhD, of the
Kennesaw State University Department of History
and Philosophy for her criticism.
 References
[1] J. Fieser, " Ethics, " The Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Accessed: Sep. 10, 2021. [Online].
Available: https://iep.utm.edu/ethics/
[2] J. M. Keynes, " Economic possibilities for our
grandchildren (1930), " in Essays in Persuasion. New
York, NY, USA: Norton, 1963, pp. 358-373.
[3] J. Pethokoukis, " Will technology enable workers
or replace them? A long-read Q&A with Daron
Acemoglu, " AEI, 2017. Accessed: Sep. 10, 2021.
[Online]. Available: https://www.aei.org/economics/willIEEE
Technology and Society Magazine
https://iep.utm.edu/ethics/ https://www.aei.org/economics/will-technology-enable-workers-or-replace-them-a-long-read-qa-with-daron-acemoglu/

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