Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI

Length: 288 pages
Edition: 1
Language: English
Publisher: La Trobe University Press
Publication Date: 2022-05-26
ISBN-10: 1760643424
ISBN-13: 9781760643423
Sales Rank: #2663204 (See Top 100 Books)

Toby Walsh explores how AI is here to stay and although it may not be the stuff of science fiction, but it will undoubtedly change the future of the human race, for better or worse.

AI is rapidly becoming a pervasive and critical technology that invisibly permeates every aspect of our lives. It’s a little like electricity – an essential, largely unseen component of our homes, farms, factories, shops and now even our cars. AI touches every stage of life, from the start (predicting which fertilized eggs to implant) to the very end (powering chatbots that spookily bring back the dead).

At present, there are approximately 3 million robots working in factories around the world, and another 30 million or so in people’s homes. Soon robots will outnumber humans.

For the first time, we are giving technology autonomy. But what happens if an autonomous AI harms or kills a person, deliberately or accidentally? It will happen, in fact, it already has. AI is changing how we operate and shaping society in ways that we unaware of. It is influencing how we shop, how we live in our homes, how we vote, how we date, how and when we have sex, and what we think about those around us.

Its presence in our lives means we need to get to grips with how it works and how it thinks, after all do we know: Is Alexa racist? Can (and will) AI help tackle the climate emergency? What limits should we place on face recognition software? Can robots have rights? And what regulations can we put in place to ensure AI makes the world a better place?

In this compelling and, at times, unnerving book, Toby Walsh explores how AI is here to stay and although it may not be the stuff of science fiction, but it will undoubtedly change the future of the human race, for better or worse.

Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
AI
    Strange intruders
    Warning signs
    Breaking bad
The People
    The geeks taking over
    The sea of dudes
    The godfathers of AI
    The crazy Valley
    The shadow of Ayn Rand
    Techno-libertarians
    Transhumanists
    Wishful thoughts
    The Tenderloin
    Project Maven
The Companies
    The new titans
    Nothing ventured
    Super-intelligence
    The climate emergency
    Bad behaviour
    Corporate values
    Google’s principles
    IBM’s thinking
    Rethinking the corporation
Autonomy
    A new challenge
    The rubber hits the road
    The upside
    The downside
    High stakes
    How self-driving cars drive
    Magnificent machines
    Trolley problems
    Moral machines
    Killer robots
    Laws banning LAWS
    The rules of war
Humans v. Machines
    Life 1.0
    The demon in the machine
    Emotions
    Pain and suffering
    AI = alien intelligence
    Robot rights
    Sophia the puppet
    Human weaknesses
Ethical Rules
    The last invention
    Fictional rules
    Responsible robots
    The academy speaks
    Europe leads
    The ethics bandwagon
    Human, not robot rights
    This isn’t the first time
    Medical lessons
    Powerful concerns
Fairness
    Mutant algorithms
    Predictive policing
    Sentencing
    Prediction errors
    The Partnership
    Alexa is racist
    Alexa is sexist
    Your computer boss
    Insuring fairness
    Algorithmic fairness
    The future
Privacy
    The history of privacy
    Privacy and technology
    Predicting the future
    Intrusive platforms
    Face recognition
    The ‘gaydar’ machine
    Trees in the forest
    Analogue privacy
    A private future
The Planet
    Green AI
    On the edge
    Big Oil
    Climate action
    AI for good
The Way Ahead
    Moral machines
    Trusting AI
    Transparency
    Technical fixes
    Regulatory fixes
    Educational fixes
    The gift of the machines
Epilogue: The Child of Our Brains
    31 December 2061
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Notes