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Tejusveenpal Nandha
CST-300
10/9/16

Ethics and Computer Science

Ethics is a wide and important topic that has many implications in our daily lives, from our

own decision-making to the ways laws are made in this country; ethics is a major factor when it

comes to deciding the outcome. According to Merriam-Webster, ethics are rules of behavior

based on ideas about what is morally good,(2015) no wonder Ethics is so important because it is

the very instrument we use to differ what is benevolent from what is malevolent.

Computer Science is a fairly new field in the sense that 26 years ago only 25 percent of

college graduates with a Bachelor’s degree owned a computer and while today that number is

probably very close to 100 percent. The definition of a computer has changed since 1990: today

a simple smart phone has higher specs compared to the super computers that were in use in the

20th century. All in all it is no surprise that computers have flourished to such a point that they

provide us with such immense utility; what we can do now with technology we could only dream

of doing in the 1990. Quite rightfully, the explosion of the computer industry has increased and

created an entirely new labor force with high-paying jobs where some professionals are earning

upwards of 100 – 200 thousand dollars annually.

Ethics and computer science are two fields that have a very deep connection because of the

amount of influence that computers have on us today. Without ethics, computers would be a

medium of extortion and an instrument of inciting violence. To the analytical person, there are

two distinct areas that are worth talking about when applying ethics to CS: the ethics of computer

usage by individuals and the ethics of computer usage by industry. In industry, the application of

ethics extends into many areas such as the ethical presentation of news by online news outlets or
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ethics of cyber espionage extending to both corporate and government forms. In this paper I will

be looking at ethics applied to Artificial Intelligence and its impacts on the job market.

“It might not be long before machines begin thinking for themselves -- creatively,

independently, and sometimes with better judgment than a human”. Charlie Rose (2016). In the

past few years, artificial intelligence has taken a big leap, making important strides in areas like

medicine and military technology. What was once the realm of science fiction has become day-

to-day reality. You’ll find A.I. routinely in your smart phone, in your car, household appliances

and; it is on the verge of changing everything. Now this technology has capabilities we never

expected: it can train itself through experience much like humans do. It won’t be long before

machines, like their human creators, begin thinking for themselves creatively and independently

with judgment which eventually will be better than humans.

As per Morikawa, M. there have been many studies on the complementarity/substitutability

of Information Technology (IT) and the skills of workers (June 07, 2016) . The earlier studies

have shown evidence based on the skill-biased nature of IT that indicate skilled labor and IT are

complementary, but that unskilled labor and IT are substitutes. More recent studies have shown

that IT substitutes for routine tasks conducted by middle-skilled workers, which results in the

polarization of the labor market. Although the discussion about the impact of AI and robotics on

employment is a natural extension of the studies on the relationship between IT and labor,

quantitative evidence on this issue has been scarce.

The estimation by Frey and Osborne of the number of jobs at risk to be replaced by future

computerization, including advances in machine learning and mobile robotics, has attracted

attention of the media and policy makers. According to the study, roughly 47% of total US

employment is at risk of computerization (2013). On the other hand, Mokyr et al. survey the
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historical lessons learned since the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century and argue that

computers and robots will create new products and services which will result in unimaginable

new occupations (2015). However, we cannot deny the possibility that the impact of the Fourth

Industrial Revolution is different from the past innovations.

As per Discussion Paper of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)

of Japan, the firms operating in the service industry have a positive attitude regarding the effects

of AI-related technologies, suggesting the importance of paying attention to "AI-using

industries." Second, they observe complementarity between AI-related technologies and the skill

level of employees. This discovery suggests that in order to accelerate the development and

diffusion of AI and to maintain employment opportunities, it will be necessary to upgrade human

capital. The firms that engage in global markets tend to have a positive attitude toward the

impacts of AI-related technologies, indicating that globalization of economic activities will

facilitate the development and diffusion of these new technologies.

We need to be very mindful while looking into artificial intelligence and consider threats

and how to control them. This industry needs to be tightly regulated so that no one can develop

unrestricted models which may cause harm to the human race. The biggest threat of artificial

intelligence is whether it is allowed to use already enhanced capabilities to create machines of

even greater might. If they go above humans they could possibly evolve beyond the human

ability to control it. “The rules to life as we know it would change forever, for there is no way to

predict if AI would decide to coexist or be hostile toward humankind” (V.

Vinge,(p.93). One can imagine AI outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human

researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even

understand. Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term
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impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all (Hawking, S. 50). Artificial-intelligence

(AI) research is now moving towards reality quite rapidly. Self-driving cars, your personal

assistant Siri, Google Now and Cortana are merely symptoms of an IT arms race started by big

corporations fully funded with billions of dollars.

A lot of countries are in a process of building automatic weapon systems that can choose

and eliminate targets. So unfortunately, it might also be the beginning of our end, unless we learn

how to avoid these risks and develop this technology in a controlled manner. The United Nations

and Human Rights Watch have been advocating a treaty banning such weapons which can

eliminate entire humanity in no time. As per Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee ,“AI may

transform our economy to bring both great wealth and great dislocation”. From an ethical point

of view we can ask, “Is it ethically correct to create replicas of human beings? And, “Do our

moral values allow us to recreate intelligence which is a gift of nature?”

Our AI machines may be able to store huge amounts of data, but the storage, access, and

retrieval may not be as effective as that of the human brain, and there they lack emotions. The

machines may perform repetitive task for you but they can’t be made good decision makers as

humans do. In the case of any emergency it may act differently and go on a totally wrong way

and could pose a potential threat to the system. We can replace hospital staff with robots but we

can’t really provide human touch to patients which plays an important role in the healing

process. If these machines begin to replace humans in every field, it will eventually lead to

unemployment. The people without work may decide to use unfair means to survive and may

choose to use destructive means. Replacing humans with machines may also reduce the need to

use the intelligence, lateral thinking and multitasking abilities of humans, and thus, they may
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vanish. This may result into humans becoming totally dependent on machines and may

eventually lose their mental capacities.

Artificial intelligence is a field that has inspired awe in humans even before the dawn of

consumer grade computers. Early movies such as Metropolis (1927) depicted robots with

artificial intelligence. There is no mystery why we are so captivated with technology and AI:

computers can perform calculations that humans could simply never do in their heads. Another

great ability of computers is they never get bored because they are simply tireless workers which

will keep performing as long as they are maintained, making computers great potential workers.

However; there is only one problem, computers are not as intuitive as humans, they can perform

immense calculation but they cannot think and form complex hypotheses in order to solve

complex problems. This limitation may soon be solved if programmers can create software with

the capability of learning and thinking like humans, this type of software is called Artificial

Intelligence.

The basic concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is that it is software which can learn and

make decisions on its own. Such software is capable of doing much more than a piece of

software which can only perform with the programmer-defined parameters. We have all seen or

experienced AI in some way shape or form, like I mentioned above entertainment media such as

movies have explored AI themes. Also if you own an Apple iPhone then you might have heard

about or even used the artificial intelligence assistant called Siri. Siri listens to your commands

and then gives you an answer based on your input. Such a form of AI as I mentioned is helpful in

our daily lives an example of its usefulness is when you need to search something like directions

to a place while you are driving. It would be dangerous for someone to be looking at the screen;
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an easy solution for this would be to have a feature like Siri where you utilize voice commands

to find the directions you so that you can keep your eyes on the road.

Looking at the technical aspects of AI, there are many ways we can use present chip

manufacturing technologies to create strides in AI development, but there are more efficient

methods to create processors for artificial intelligence that work better at higher efficiency, such

a chip technology is called Neuromorphic chips. According to Robert D. Hof, who wrote the

article Neuromorphic Chips on MIT Technology Review, Neuromorphic Chips are

“Microprocessors configured more like brains than traditional chips.” This is an important

element in this discussion because it is a cornerstone to developing successful and portable AI

processors. According to the article, Qualcomm manufacturered the chip fitted inside a small

robot which has an attachment to help it grab objects then in a simulated room they placed a

small action figure, the robot proceeded to pick up the toy and deposit it in a place that the

engineer indicated. In a second, trial another toy was placed on the ground and the robot picked

it up; but this time, instead of relying on the gesture of someone, it had remembered where to

deposit the toy from the first trial. This is important because this is an important element of AI

that systems that have AI have the ability to learn, this is a important aspect if you want to build

properly functioning AI.

Getting back to the main discussion point, the above gives a basic overview of AI. Artificial

intelligence has a lot of benefits when it comes to its usefulness. But coming back to the

discussion of its relationship to ethics, we begin to see how it can have an overwhelmingly

negative impact on humans in the long run. Earlier, I made the point that it is possible that

without provision, AI could make millions of people in the United States jobless because of its

ability to perform vast amounts of tasks. This is true because if one is to look at the track record
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of the technology revolution (specifically dealing with computers), they can see that a lot of the

jobs which were available in the past 4-5 decades have been replaced by machines that are more

efficient.

Looking at the jobs that are possibly at risk of being taken we first come to the realization

that blue collar jobs will be the first to go as they are seemingly easier to replace, whereas jobs

that have more technical requirements are less likely to be taken, (jobs requiring the “human

touch”). If we look at all the jobs that require a driver (e.g. taxi driver, truck driver, and delivery

drivers), we see that these three jobs combined have roughly around 3,361,400 workers which is

a very large portion of the working class men and women. These three jobs are at risk of being

taken by machines, or as they are more widely known “self-riving cars”, When that happens,

millions of Americans will lose the ability to support themselves, which will lead to mass

unemployment. If we look at the previous recession we notice that joblessness leads to increased

economic volatility which is best measured by the decrease in GDP growth. In case of massive

unemployment, GDP growth has always gone down severally. The reason is that the amount of

people that are contributing to the economy is less than the optimal amount. Looking at the

human aspect of this problem, were this to happen, homelessness and poverty will increase

tremendously.

Economic down-turns are something every working individual fears due to their influence

on the job market and prospects of people losing their existing job. In the 2008 economic crash,

nearly 2.5 million jobs were lost because of the economic downturn. The effects that the

unemployment/job-loss had on the overall population was devastating people couldn’t feed their

families and couldn’t pay their home loans. Joblessness isn’t something that will only effect the

individuals who are without work rather. Because of the nature of economics, a change in one
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area will send ripples or shockwaves throughout the whole system. For example, if you are a

goods producer then your source of profit is the consumer. This means that if people are willing

to buy your goods or services you earn operating income and profit from that source. Imagine

now, something happens which prevents those people from buying your products then you will

not be in business for long as the basis for your profit is gone which leads to businesses

defaulting. This process continues to cause a secondary unemployment phase which happens to

the people who own a business or worked for a business that provides goods. The economics of

AI are showing us that, although it might be a good business solution for companies looking to

cut spending, it might have overall long term effects which are devastating. A good question to

think about when we are talking about ethics in relation to artificial intelligence is whether

allowing this to happen is a morally good choice? This is not a simple question to answer.

In order to ensure that artificial intelligence doesn’t cause some of the problems

mentioned above, we have to consider our options are regarding AI regulation. One of the

options we can opt for would be to have government regulations on what AI can do and can’t do.

One of the biggest setbacks to this would be free market advocates who, in the interest of

corporations, would lobby interest groups to back legislation that denounces any form of AI

reform. In a democratic government everyone has the right to express their rights and have a say

in what should and shouldn’t happen, thus, such legislation would truly be in the hands of the

people. It would involve perhaps millions of workers represented by union representatives to

successfully win in such a battle.

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In order to garner support for legislation that would limit the use of AI, there would have

to be measures in place that ensured people know what is at stake. One of the biggest reasons

why laws involving corporate interests that negatively impact people are passed is that many

people are often unaware of these issues that are against their interests. Thus, the biggest

challenge is to make people more aware of what’s happening in the world. I order to make

people aware there can be programs by the government teaching college students the importance

of AI regulation. All in all AI regulation is very necessary for the reasons mentioned above, if we

do not regulate AI we will lose jobs which will have devastating effects on the economy and

could make millions of people go without food and a home. It is an ethical imperative that we

take steps to having laws that prohibit the use of AI in areas that can negatively impact our lives.
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