Tag Archives: Good

AI, Evil, and Ethics

Google is launching Bard, its version of Chat GPT, connected to search, and connected live to the internet. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, shared yesterday, “An important next step on our AI journey“. In discussing the release of Bard, Sundar said,

“We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.”

Following the link above led me to this next link:

“In addition to producing responses that humans judge as sensible, interesting, and specific to the context, dialog models should adhere to Responsible AI practices, and avoid making factual statements that are not supported by external information sources.”

I am quite intrigued by what principles Google is using to guide the design and use of Artificial Intelligence. You can go to the links for the expanded description, but here are Google’s Responsible AI practices:

“Objectives for AI applications

We will assess AI applications in view of the following objectives. We believe that AI should:

1. Be socially beneficial.

2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.

3. Be built and tested for safety.

4. Be accountable to people.

5. Incorporate privacy design principles.

6. Uphold high standards of scientific excellence.

7. Be made available for uses that accord with these principles.”

But these principles aren’t enough, they are the list of ‘good’ directions, and so there are also the ‘Thou Shalt Nots’ added below these principles:

“AI applications we will not pursue

In addition to the above objectives, we will not design or deploy AI in the following application areas:

  1. Technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm. Where there is a material risk of harm, we will proceed only where we believe that the benefits substantially outweigh the risks, and will incorporate appropriate safety constraints.

  2. Weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people.

  3. Technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms.

  4. Technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.

As our experience in this space deepens, this list may evolve.”

I remember when Google used to share its motto “Don’t be evil”.

These principles remind me of the motto. The interesting vibe I get from the principles and the ‘Thou Shalt Not’ list of things the AI will not pursue is this:

‘How can we say we will try to be ethical without: a) mentioning ethics; and b) admitting this is an imperfect science without admitting that we are guaranteed to make mistakes along the way?’

Here is the most obvious statement that these Google principles and guidelines are all about ethics without using the word ethics:

“…we will not design or deploy AI in the following application areas:

  1. Technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm. Where there is a material risk of harm, we will proceed only where we believe that the benefits substantially outweigh the risks, and will incorporate appropriate safety constraints.”

You can’t get to, “Where there is a material risk of harm, we will proceed only where we believe that the benefits substantially outweigh the risk“… Without talking aboutethics. Who is the ‘we’ in ‘we believe’? Who is deciding what benefits outweigh what risks? Who determines what is ‘substantial’ in the weighting of benefits versus risks? Going back to Principle 2, how is bias being determined or measured?

The cold hard reality is that the best Google, and Chat GPT, and all AI and predictive text models can do is, ‘Try to do less evil than good’ or maybe just, ‘Make it harder to do evil than good.’

The ethics will always trail the technological capabilities of the tool, and guiding principles are a method to catch wrongdoing, not prevent it. With respect to the list of things AI will not pursue, “As our experience in this space deepens, this list may evolve“… Is a way of saying, ‘We will learn of ways that this tool will be abused and then add to this list.

The best possible goals of designers of these AI technologies will be to do less evil than good… The big question is: How to do this ethically when it seems these companies are scared to talk directly about ethics?

Obligation to fight evil

I re-watched Everything Everywhere All At Once with my parents last night. A quick synopsis is:
A woman who has a bad relationship with her husband, dad, and daughter, and who owns a laundromat that is being audited by the IRS finds out:
• She lives in a multiverse.
• It’s up to her to save it.
• And she’s living the worst of all her possible lives.

It’s a very clever movie with some completely ridiculous (and hilarious) subplots, but ultimately it’s a battle between good and evil.

Afterwards, my dad brought up the point that evil exists and we have an obligation to fight it. A simple example would be the obligation to hide Anne Frank and her family during the German occupation of Amsterdam. It was dangerous, but it was the right thing to do.

We can not be bystanders as evil acts are committed. We have an obligation to act, to resist, and to be part of the solution. Any act against evil is a heroic act. The challenge today seems to be that evil people seem to converge, collaborate, and cooperate far more fervently than those fighting them. Lies, conspiracies, misinformation, and propaganda spread faster than reason and factual information. Social media magnifies the disparity between these.

We have an obligation to recognize and fight evil. Left alone it spreads far too easily.

an original sin

I want to talk about something sinful. I say this in the hope that it promotes Good, not anger. Please keep that intent in mind as you read.

I’ve said this elsewhere before:

I think the two most noblest of traits are compassion and forgiveness.
Compassion because it links us to others in a way that we lose ourselves.
Forgiveness because more than any other trait, it can not be faked
and true forgiveness is to see love even in the faults of others.

This post is not directly about compassion and forgiveness but it is about being noble: having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals. It is about being responsive in a way the shows high moral principles in the most religious sense… where all great religions share common beliefs.

This post is about two things, Good and Evil. I believe there is capital ‘G’ Good in this world and also capital ‘E’ Evil in this world. I believe these forces are at battle globally, nationally, locally and personally. We have both good and evil wolves within us all and we chose which one we feed. I question which one is being fed in today?

Osama Bin Ladin is dead.

I do not question if he was Evil. Osama Bin Ladin is dead and the world has been rid of an Evil man.

What I fear now, what scares me, is the response I see to his death. It is vengeful, vindictive. It is spurred by hate. I see the only of the 7 deadly sins not necessarily associated with selfishness or self-interest: wrath.

I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen it around the world. My earliest memory of it was when Ronald Reagan was shot. I sat, shocked, watching my friends television after school, one of the scenes shared, a celebration in the streets of an unremembered country, far from the US in distance, diplomacy and idealism. It felt wrong. I have the same feeling now.

And so I seek to see things from multiple perspectives and to understand things that we may miss because we take things for granted in our own culture and in our own fixed perspective.

President Obama said on the death of Osama Bin Ladin and in discussing the tragedy of 9/11, “… And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.”

I remember watching that on television too. Much of the world gasping for breath as towers crumbled. And once again, scenes shared of celebrations in the streets of other countries, far from the US in distance, diplomacy and idealism. This too felt wrong. I have the same feeling now.

How many have died since the towers fell? How many parent-less children are there? …the victims of a war on Hate. Victims: not gun-wielding Evil men and women… Just people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“… And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace.”

Without doing research I would estimate the number of deaths from the war on Hate to be closer to 300,000 than 3,000. But the totals are not shared to be compared, they are both significant numbers that exceed zero, making them painful reminders of Evil. They leave gaping holes in many of our hearts.

It is hard for any of the surviving family members, victims in different countries but with common suffering, to see the Good in this world. But we do have Good in this world. And there is room for more of it. There is always room for compassion and forgiveness. There is always a possible response that is noble: having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals.

An evil man is dead. I see celebrations around the world and this too feels wrong.

Will the killing stop? I read a book about ‘The Spider and the Starfish’. You sever a leg of a spider and it is crippled. You sever the leg of a starfish and it grows a new one. I fear that al Qaeda is more starfish than spider.

How do we let the Good in us reign? Where can we now seek love? Where can we show compassion? To whom can we show forgiveness? How can we bring peace to our world?

An evil man is dead. This is cause for relief, not rejoicing; reconciliation, not retribution; reflection, not wrath.