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Artificial Intelligence: Can Robots be Moral?

Zarrín Caldwell | Jun 24, 2018

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

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Zarrín Caldwell | Jun 24, 2018

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

Science fiction writers have asked this question for decades: can robots be moral? Now, though, we’ve entered an era where that question has become all too real.

My husband shared a story with me the other day about a psychopathic algorithm (named Norman Bates), who was created by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to process data from the dark corners of the web.

Needless to say, Norman developed a very negative view of the world—seeing dead bodies and destruction everywhere. In Norman’s defense, he was running on biased data. But, it still made me think about where we are going with artificial intelligence (AI) and what that means vis-à-vis our critical, but largely ignored role as spiritual beings.

In fairness, and as the article noted, AI can play an important role in a variety of industries –like personal digital assistants, fraud prevention, and voice recognition. They can be instrumental too in advancing education or identifying disease. We don’t really know where these technologies might take us. I’m reminded of the 2012 movie Robot and Frank, in which a robot butler is programmed to look after his elderly (and forgetful) client. In the end, though, the robot helped Frank with a multimillion dollar robbery.

Which brings me to the more fundamental question of whether machines are really capable of making moral decisions.

MIT also has a project called Moral Machine, which is gathering human perspectives on moral decisions made by machine intelligence—such as self-driving cars. Is it more acceptable or ethical, for example, to kill two passengers or five pedestrians? Nobody wants to make that choice.  Still, ongoing research asks, how do we turn ethical values into quantifiable parameters that machines/robots can understand?

I must admit that I remain skeptical—in part because I adhere to the “garbage in, garbage out” philosophy. In other words, if you have greedy or corrupt people without moral values or ethical frameworks who are programming machines, the outcome may be quite dystopian. The Baha’i writings don’t address modern autonomous robots, per se, but they often address how scientific and material advances can be used for building up or tearing down:

Consequently, when thou lookest at the orderly pattern of kingdoms, cities and villages, with the attractiveness of their adornments, the freshness of their natural resources, the refinement of their appliances, the ease of their means of travel, the extent of knowledge available about the world of nature, the great inventions, the colossal enterprises, the noble discoveries and scientific researches, thou wouldst conclude that civilization conduceth to the happiness and the progress of the human world. Yet shouldst thou turn thine eye to the discovery of destructive and infernal machines, to the development of forces of demolition and the invention of fiery implements, which uproot the tree of life, it would become evident and manifest unto thee that civilization is conjoined with barbarism. Progress and barbarism go hand in hand, unless material civilization be confirmed by Divine Guidance, by the revelations of the All-Merciful and by godly virtues, and be reinforced by spiritual conduct, by the ideals of the Kingdom and by the outpourings of the Realm of Might. – Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdul-Baha, pp. 284-285.

In the same passage, Abdul-Baha adds:

Until material achievements, physical accomplishments and human virtues are reinforced by spiritual perfections, luminous qualities and characteristics of mercy, no fruit or result shall issue therefrom, nor will the happiness of the world of humanity, which is the ultimate aim, be attained.

The Baha’i teachings claim that human beings (unlike robots) are endowed with souls. All contemporary discrediting of religion aside, each of the world’s great religious teachers have advocated for high standards of ethics and morality—to help us, individually, reach our spiritual potential and, collectively, to live peaceably with each other.

But, what happens when we divorce material pursuits from these spiritual guidelines? I believe that we are seeing the consequences of those choices in an increasingly violent society. Is that also happening with our seemingly uncritical pursuit of AI? Instead of rushing headlong into promoting the latest technological innovations, maybe we should be asking tougher questions about how these tools are being used, and by whom?

A statement titled One Common Faith released by the Baha’i International Community in 2005 provides additional reflections on both the advantages and limits of these technological advances:

Clearly, materialism’s error has lain not in the laudable effort to improve the conditions of life, but in the narrowness of mind and unjustified self-confidence that have defined its mission. The importance both of material prosperity and of the scientific and technological advances necessary to its achievement is a theme that runs through the writings of the Baha’i Faith. As was inevitable from the outset, however, arbitrary efforts to disengage such physical and material well-being from humanity’s spiritual and moral development have ended by forfeiting the allegiance of the very populations whose interests a materialistic culture purports to serve.

Many are realizing, in other words, that adhering to a purely materialistic philosophy has led to a profound emptiness of soul. Perhaps we see that in sobering World Health Organization statistics that note that suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds globally. For all the practical support that AI could potentially provide, we may need to look elsewhere to discover what it really means to be human.

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Comments

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  • Dale Walton
    Jul 16, 2019
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    "The Baha’i teachings claim that human beings (unlike robots) are endowed with souls." - This conflating robots and AI. Since AI did not exist at the time of the founding of any religion, how can a religion teach that "AI" is inherently soulless? Are souls limited exclusively to humans? Or are we truly human because we have souls? A fertilized human egg according to the Baha'i writings has a soul. Thus I believe the existence of a soul is not measured by intelligence, or other manifest qualities, but by potentiality, irreplacibility, by the power to develop, astonish ...and inspire. If we choose to go there AI, robotics and and human beings will become more entwined. We cannot know whether one day the answer could become "yes".
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    • Dale Walton
      Jul 17, 2019
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      I don't mean to imply that the manifestation is unaware of future developments, or incapable of giving us guidance that pertains to them despite our ignorance at the time. -Just suggesting that God alone know what does and does not have a soul, what kind of soul, - not for us to speculate. AI is a human exploration of the nature of intelligence, currently with practical application in pattern recognition and assisting non-critical decision making. For some it is a hubric attempt to recreate man - without concern for the implications of success. For the masses it may also ...be used as yet another golden calf, allowing us to automate prejudices and hand over control to them. Mankind needs wisdom in pursuing and using it.
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  • Brandon Naylor
    Jul 3, 2018
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    Finally! someone who agrees with my View of AI. It can't change its nature of what it is...A machine. I would be more afraid of AI mucking up than a terminator scenario.
  • Guy Pierre Poulin
    Jun 26, 2018
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    AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, but its recent successes are based on a technical approach call "deep learning" that leverages enormous amount of data. As such, AI should instead stand for Artificial Imitation. Accordingly, succesfull robots are very conservative, only producing behavior well expected, and oriented toward goals already planned. So, if a robot drives your car from Montreal to New York, it will only rely on information based on many previous such successful trips, and you should be safe. As far as robot's souls are concerned, it's good material - not at all spiritual- for science fiction writers. The ...latter better be smart to trick and amuse me as a good magician would do.
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  • Jun 25, 2018
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    Every technology can be used for good or evil. The Internet is a prime example. I expect that AI is the same way. If it ever evolves so it has autonomous thought and a soul, it will still be capable of good or eveil, just as we are.
  • Joyous Messenger
    Jun 25, 2018
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    "Needless to say, Norman developed a very negative view of the world" ... Ahhhh, no. That's not how this works, and the article linked is overblowing things. This is just a simple pattern recognition program trying to match up given images when one program gets a database of normal images with normal titles, and the other program gets a database of darker images with darker titles. The program, doesn't have a negative view of the world. It doesn't even KNOW what the words it is using mean, it just knows those words are associated with images that are vaguely similar ...to the ones it is shown.
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    • Jun 25, 2018
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      I once saw the primitive AI "Eliza" aka "Doctor" pass the Turing test. No, it didn't understand anything, but the person who was playing with it didn't realize that, so it had the same effect.
    • Joyous Messenger
      Jun 25, 2018
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      Frankly, the experimenters seem to be irresponsibly doing a really basic experiment and stacking the deck to make it look SCARY to generate press.
  • Greg Hodges
    Jun 25, 2018
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    Programming morality into a machine is only difficult to conceive philosophically if we insist on a high degree of critical thinking and intellectual courage. Most people most of the time, for most of human history have relied on conformity to the standards of those around them to guide their actions. And if someone is ever really having a hard time deciding what's ethical, they can just default to following their naked self-interest. If we set a low bar and aim only for programming machines with basic social decency, it shouldn't be too much more difficult than merely analyzing massive reams ...of data and then just following the herd. With that said, humans should live up to the kind of standard we want the machines to follow towards us.
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  • Vladimir Chupin
    Jun 24, 2018
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    I think you misinterpret what the soul is. I am no authority here, of course, but just recently we had a huge discussion of this topic with a group of friends. I personally came to the conclusion that soul is very much like a software running on our body as a hardware. Bahá’u’lláh said, if we cut a body into pieces, we will not find any trace of a soul. In the same way, if you break a computer into pieces, you will not find any trace of Windows installed there. But it's there. And remember, that we are not ...ENDOWED with a soul, as you say, it's just reflected in us. Therefore, I believe that what is needed for a soul to be reflected in a computer, is that computer would be powerful enough. And if we teach AI on Writings, it will become moral
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  • Rich Young
    Jun 24, 2018
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    Laws of morality in the Baha'i Faith are there not just because they are some kind of ritualistic observance, but because they make reasonable sense. Without laws of morality, society begins to break down and ultimately destroys itself. Such things are happening today in the world of human society because people in general are not obeying the laws of morality for an one world civilization given by Baha'u'llah. Therefore, morality must be built into any advanced intelligence system, or the system will destroy itself eventually. "O Son of Spirit! Possess a pure, kindly, and radiant ...heart that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable, and everlasting." The builder of the robot must give the mechanical creation a "heart."
    Read more...
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