"Artilect Ethics" Debate Heats Up with Academic Philosophers


For the past year or so (1999, 2000), I've been trying to persuade the applied ethics philosophers that they should be taking seriously the species dominance issue ("Should humanity build artilects and thereby risk the destruction of the human species, or should humanity build god like massively intelligent machines?")

My call is increasingly being answered.

In the University of Tasmania in Australia, a web forum on the "Ethics of AI" (which includes the species dominance question) has been running for some months, and a growing number of philosophy professors have contributed essays to it.

See http://www.justlikethat.com/client/philosophy_user/ai.html

As a part of this campaign of mine, I've been particularly interested in trying to persuade Prof. Peter Singer, the world's best known "practical ethics" professor to take up the cause.

See http://www.cs.usu.edu/~degaris/news/singer.html

and -

Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 17:52:54 +0200
From: Hugo de Garis
To: psinger@Princeton.EDU, degaris@starlab.net, mpiscioneri@hotmail.com
Subject: Hugo, professorial debate on AI Ethics heats up, URL

Dear Peter,

Have you been following the professorial debate on the Ethics of AI (and artilects) to be found at

http://www.justlikethat.com/client/philosophy_user/ai.html

It has had over 30,000 hits already. Some of the names who have already contributed are world class, especially Prof. I. J. Good (of Ultra Intelligent Machine (UIM) fame). (See list of submitted essays below, mostly from university professors). I think you will find this forum worthy of you. Certainly if you contribute to it, it would encourage other world class applied ethics philosophers to take the species dominance issue seriously. I think it is fair to say that the tide is already turning regarding the level of acceptance amongst philosophy professors of this critical topic.

If you do decide to contribute a piece (perhaps a cut and past job taken from one of your fall lectures) could you please email it to

Matthew Piscioneri (mpiscioneri@hotmail.com)

who is organizing this AI Ethics web journal/forum.

Cheers,

Hugo

P.S. Of course, I hope in the not too distant future you will sit down and write a book worthy of the topic. 30 years from now, I believe you will be remembered more for your Artilect Ethics book than any of your others.


Prof. Dr. Hugo de Garis
Head, Starbrain,
Starlab's Artificial Brain Project
degaris@starlab.net
http://www.cs.usu.edu/~degaris
http://www.starlab.org

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Henry Cribbs
"Bearing Frankenstein's Children: Artificial Intelligence and Objective Moral Values"
http://www.justlikethat.com/client/philosophy_user/ai_paper/cribbs/cribbs.html

Whitby and Oliver
"How to Avoid a Robot Takeover"
http://www.justlikethat.com/client/philosophy_user/ai_paper/whit.html

Prof. I. J. Good
"Ethical Machines"
http://www.justlikethat.com/client/philosophy_user/ai_paper/goodpaper1.html

Prof. de Garis
"The Artilect War"
http://www.justlikethat.com/client/philosophy_user/ai_paper/artwar.html

Prof. Stuart
"Artificial Rights"
http://www.justlikethat.com/client/philosophy_user/ai_paper/artrights.html