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It is not about AI, it is about humans

It is not about AI, it is about humans

Written by Alberto Giubilini

We might be forgiven for asking so frequently these days whether we should trust artificial intelligence. Too much has been written about the promises and perils of ChatGPT to escape the question. Upon reading both enthusiastic and concerned accounts of it, there seems to be very little the software cannot do. It can provide or fabricate a huge amount of information in the blink on an eye, reinterpret it and organize it into essays that seem written by humans, produce different forms of art (from figurative art to music, poetry, and so on) virtually indistinguishable from human-made art, and so much more.

It seems fair to ask how we can trust AI not to fabricate evidence, plagiarize, defame, serve anti-democratic political ends, violate privacy, and so on.

One possible answer is that we cannot. This could be true in two senses.

In a first sense, we cannot trust AI because it is not reliable. It gets things wrong too often, there is no way to figure out if it is wrong without doing ourselves the kind of research that the software was supposed to do for us, and it could be used in unethical ways. On this view, the right attitude towards AI is one of cautious distrust. What it does might well be impressive, but not reliable epistemically or ethically.

In a second sense, we cannot trust AI for the same reason why we cannot distrust it, either. Quite simply, trust (and distrust) is not the kind of attitude we can have towards tools. Unlike humans, tools are just means to our ends. They can be more or less reliable, but not more or less trustworthy. In order to trust, we need to have certain dispositions – or ‘reactive attitudes’, to use some philosophical jargon – that can only be appropriately directed at humans. According to Richard Holton’s account of ‘trust’, for instance, trust requires the readiness to feel betrayed by the individual you trust[1]. Or perhaps we can talk, less emphatically, of readiness to feel let down.

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ChatGPT Has a Sexual Harassment Problem

written by César Palacios-González

@CPalaciosG

If I were to post online that you have been accused of sexually harassing someone, you could rightly maintain that this is libellous. This is a false statement that damages your reputation. You could demand that I correct it and that I do so as soon as possible. The legal system could punish me for what I have done, and, depending on where I was in the world, it could send me to prison, fine me, and ask me to delete and retract my statements. Falsely accusing someone of sexual harassment is considered to be very serious.

In addition to the legal aspect there is also an ethical one. I have done something morally wrong, and more specifically, I have harmed you. We know this because, everything else being equal, if I had not falsely claimed that you have been accused of sexual harassment, you would be better off. This way of putting it might sound odd but it is not really so if we compare it to, for example, bodily harms. If I wantonly break your arm I harm you, and I do so because if I hadn’t done so you would be better off.Read More »ChatGPT Has a Sexual Harassment Problem

How Brain-to-Brain Interfaces Will Make Things Difficult for Us

Written by David Lyreskog

Four images depicting ‘Hivemind Brain-Computer Interfaces’, as imagined by the AI art generator Midjourney.
‘Hivemind Brain-Computer Interfaces’, as imagined by the AI art generator Midjourney

 

A growing number of technologies are currently being developed to improve and distribute thinking and decision-making. Rapid progress in brain-to-brain interfacing, and hybrid and artificial intelligence, promises to transform how we think about collective and collaborative cognitive tasks. With implementations ranging from research to entertainment, and from therapeutics to military applications, as these tools continue to improve, we need to anticipate and monitor their impacts – how they may affect our society, but also how they may reshape our fundamental understanding of agency, responsibility, and other concepts which ground our moral landscapes.Read More »How Brain-to-Brain Interfaces Will Make Things Difficult for Us

Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics: Turning up the Hedonic Treadmill: Is It Morally Impermissible for Parents to Give Their Children a Luxurious Standard of Living?

This essay was the overall winner in the Undergraduate Category of the 2023 National Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics

Written by University of Oxford student, Lukas Joosten

Most parents think they are helping their children when they give them a very high standard of life. This essay argues that giving luxuries to your children can, in fact, be morally impermissible. The core of my argument is that when parents give their children a luxurious standard of life, they foist an expectation for a higher standard of living upon their children, reducing their lifetime wellbeing if they cannot afford this standard in adulthood.

I argue for this conclusion in four steps. Firstly, I discuss how one can harm someone by changing their preferences. Secondly, I develop a model for the general permissibility of gift giving in the context of adaptive preferences. Thirdly, I apply this to the case of parental giving, arguing it is uniquely problematic. Lastly, I respond to a series of objections to the main argument.  Read More »Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics: Turning up the Hedonic Treadmill: Is It Morally Impermissible for Parents to Give Their Children a Luxurious Standard of Living?

Why Actions Matter: The Case for Fluid Moral Status

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This article received an honourable mention in the graduate category of the 2023 National Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics

Written by Lucy Simpson, Nottingham Trent University student

 

Throughout the catalogue of work produced by Jeff McMahan, he has discussed what constitutes a being’s moral status, and has advocated the theories of moral individualism and reflective equilibrium intuitionism.[1] It is not my intention in this paper to dispute  these positions. Instead, I argue that if we accept McMahan’s position, then logically, we must accept that a being’s moral character is a morally relevant property which we ought to consider when determining their moral status. As I will explain, this therefore means that moral status is not static; it is fluid. Further to this, in the latter stages of this paper, I consider that if we do accept that moral status is action dependant, then there might be negative moral status. On the topic of negative moral status, I do not aim to give any in-depth arguments either for or against its existence, but rather just flag this as a potential avenue for further exploration if we do indeed follow McMahan’s theories of intuitionism and moral individualism.Read More »Why Actions Matter: The Case for Fluid Moral Status

Do we have an Obligation to Diversify our Media Consumption ?

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This article received an honourable mention in the graduate category of the 2023 National Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics

Written by James Shearer, University of St Andrews student

  1. Introduction 

In an increasingly politicised society, previously mundane decisions about our daily lives can take on normative qualities. One such question is “what news media should we consume?”. Alex Worsnip suggests that we have an obligation to consume media from across the political landscape. This essay argues against this claim by showing that any obligation to diversify our media consumption in this way would face severe limitations. §2 will consider Worsnip’s argument. §3 will show why we are under no general obligation to diversify our media consumption. Finally, in §4 I consider and respond to potential responses to my position.

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Announcing the Winners and Runners Up in the 9th Annual National Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics

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Please join us in congratulating all four of the finalists in the National Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics 2023, and in particular our winners, Lukas Joosten and Avital Fried. We would also like to thank our judges, Prof Roger Crisp, Prof Edward Harcourt and Dr Sarah Raskoff.

This, the final of the 9th Annual National Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics, was held on the 14th March in the lecture theatre of the Faculty of Philosophy, as well as online. During the final the four finalists presented their papers and ideas to an audience and responded to a short Q&A as the deciding round in the competition. A selection of the winning essays and honourable mentions will be published on this blog.Read More »Announcing the Winners and Runners Up in the 9th Annual National Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics