Beyond the Map
This week several apparently unrelated strands began to converge in a way that caught my attention.
The first concerned the ethical dilemmas now facing developers of advanced artificial intelligence. As these systems become more powerful, the organisations building them must decide how they will relate to governments — including military institutions. As is often the case with the development of new technologies, capabilities tend to outstrip the moral development of the human beings who will be using them. Sometimes these moral questions are brought into sharp relief by the public response to the choices companies make.
This may not necessarily be a bad thing. It keeps a living edge of debate where these questions become active interfaces for serious discussion. But it is also risky, because there is no guarantee that humanity will rise to the challenge. Historically there has almost always been a lag between technological capability and moral maturity. That, perhaps, is a larger question for another essay.
The first concerned the ethical dilemmas now facing developers of advanced artificial intelligence. As these systems become more powerful, the organisations building them must decide how they will relate to governments — including military institutions. As is often the case with the development of new technologies, capabilities tend to outstrip the moral development of the human beings who will be using them. Sometimes these moral questions are brought into sharp relief by the public response to the choices companies make.
This may not necessarily be a bad thing. It keeps a living edge of debate where these questions become active interfaces for serious discussion. But it is also risky, because there is no guarantee that humanity will rise to the challenge. Historically there has almost always been a lag between technological capability and moral maturity. That, perhaps, is a larger question for another essay.
A Pattern Beginning to Appear
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