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Normative ethics, human rights, and artificial intelligence

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Abstract

At some point in the future, nearly all jobs currently performed by humans will be performed by autonomous machines using artificial intelligence (AI). There is little doubt that it will increase precision, comfort, and save time, but this coincides with the introduction of many ethical, social, and legal difficulties as well. Because machines will be performing all of the tasks that humans used to, they cannot be kept exempt from the ethical principles that humans follow. However, because digital machines can only understand 0 and 1, encoding complex philosophical ideas in 0 and 1 would be an assiduous task. These great difficulties offer the opportunity to revisit some of the basic and time-tested normative moral theories advanced by modern philosophers. There could be significant advantages for the many players in AI, namely producers and consumers, thanks to these moral philosophies. Customers could use it to make a purchase decision concerning AI machines, whereas manufacturers could use it to write good ethical algorithms for their AI machines. To handle any ethical difficulties that may develop due to the use of these machines, the manuscript will summarise the important and pertinent normative theories and arrive at a set of principles for writing algorithms for the manufacture and marketing of artificially intelligent machines. These normative theories are simple to understand and use, and they do not require a deep understanding of difficult philosophical or religious notions. These viewpoints claim that good and wrong may be determined merely by applying reasoning and that arriving at any logical conclusion does not necessitate a thorough understanding of philosophy or religion. Another goal of the manuscript is to investigate whether artificial intelligence can be trusted to enforce human rights and whether it is right to code all AI machines with one uniform moral code, particularly in a scenario where they will be doing different jobs for different parties. Is it possible to use the diversity of moral principles as a marketing strategy, and could humans be allowed to choose the moral codes for their machines?

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sikkim Central University, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

    Shailendra Kumar

  2. Bodoland State University, Deborgaon, Assam, India

    Sanghamitra Choudhury

  3. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Sanghamitra Choudhury

  4. Queen’s University, Belfast, UK

    Sanghamitra Choudhury

  5. The Hague Academy of International Law, Hague, The Netherlands

    Sanghamitra Choudhury

  6. Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

    Sanghamitra Choudhury

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  1. Shailendra Kumar
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Correspondence to Sanghamitra Choudhury.

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Kumar, S., Choudhury, S. Normative ethics, human rights, and artificial intelligence. AI Ethics 3, 441–450 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-022-00170-8

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