this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Philosophy

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AI and Morality (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 days ago by daveB@sh.itjust.works to c/philosophy@lemmy.world
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Has anyone attempted to build moral principles into an AI model?

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[–] voracitude@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Ethics, not morals, but yes, this is a core part of "alignment" or making sure the machine wants the same thing we do. It turns out alignment is really hard because ethics is really hard. The classic AI doomsday story is based on an AI that took utilitarianism as the highest end goal (the best way to save humanity is to destroy it); that's an ethical framework used to justify genocide.

So shorter answer: "Yes, but ethics is hard". I really like Robert Miles' videos on this topic; here's one to get you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeecOKBus3Q

And here's another very related one for after: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUO6pjwFOo

[–] daveB@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thank you for your reply and I think you are in the same headspace as I am on this topic. I will check out the links you posted. A side note: what is the difference between ethics and morals?

[–] voracitude@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

My pleasure!

Morality has a religious basis and ultimately comes down to "God's will is how things should be, so how close is it to God's will?"

Meanwhile, ethics is secular and tries to answer questions of "right" and "wrong" in the absence of an omnipotent power.

[–] daveB@sh.itjust.works 1 points 21 hours ago

I see your point. Thank you for your well worded explanation.

My personal view is not to see religious or secular but that we are all dealing with the same thing.

I enjoy CS Lewis’s discussions on universal morality as he was someone who was an atheist who later professed faith in Jesus Christ.

[–] frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

Huge literature on this, hard to know where to start.

Search arXiv or a similar site.

[–] Amoxtli@thelemmy.club 2 points 2 days ago

They already did.

‘Absurdly woke’: Google’s AI chatbot spits out ‘diverse’ images of Founding Fathers, popes, Vikings https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/absurdly-woke-google-ai-chatbot-185153814.html

Why Google's 'woke' AI problem won't be an easy fix https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68412620

[–] daveB@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Great thanks, I will check it out.

All of the info on AI development seems to be hush hush so I am very curious what it is going on with developing AI.

I remember a couple years ago there were calls to cease AI development with concerns about world safety and then the commercial media outlets sort of stopped talking about it.

[–] daveB@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Very interesting, thanks for sharing this.

A woke robot, so good!

I will read up on this.

[–] daveB@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Interesting 🤔

They were discussing AI this morning on a podcast on CBC radio this morning that got me thinking about this.

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/why-the-tech-giant-nvidia-may-own-the-future-plus-joshua-rothman-on-taking-ai-seriously

They talked about a survey about what people would want AI and/or robots to do for them. At the top of the list was doing dishes and cleaning up the house. They referenced the cleaning robot Rosy in their discussion which was funny.

It’s an interesting question, what do you we want to use AI for?

[–] daveB@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thank you for your reply and I think you are in the same headspace as I am on this topic. I will check out the links you posted.

A side note: what is the difference between ethics and morals?

[–] poplargrove@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Hi you havent replied to the comments people made, youve replied to your post. People wont get a notification that you replied.

[–] daveB@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Ok, thank you, I’m still getting used to the buttons on here