Moral Skill and Artificial Intelligence (External Grant)
Moral Skill and Artificial Intelligence (External Grant)
HMI is undertaking a 3 year research project funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation (USD234,00) and ANU, on Moral Skill and AI. Here’s the executive summary:
As humans, our skills define us. No skill is more human than the exercise of moral judgment. We are already using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automate morally-loaded decisions. In other domains of human activity, automating a task diminishes our skill at that task. Will 'moral automation' diminish our moral skill? If so, how can we mitigate that risk, and adapt AI to enable moral 'upskilling'? Our project will use philosophy, social psychology, and computer science to answer these questions.
The first stage of treatment is diagnosis. We begin by identifying both existing and prospective varieties of moral automation, before exploring the philosophical and social-psychological foundations of the argument from moral automation to moral deskilling. In doing so, we will determine just why, and how much, we should be worried about moral deskilling.
Treatment in this case comprises both mitigation and adaptation. We will propose technological and institutional solutions to mitigate the risk of moral deskilling. But we will also argue that AI systems will enable us to adapt to the challenge of automation, by morally upskilling in other areas. In particular, some measure of moral automation will free us up to pursue the morally most demanding aspects of our personal relationships; AI research will enable new kinds of moral knowledge and moral inquiry; and by affording us new understandings and capacities, AI can make new kinds of moral behaviour possible.
Our project will produce scholarship of the highest order. But our goals are not narrowly academic. Through the HMI project, we will translate our research to maximise its impact at all levels of Australian, and global society.