Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI

by Toby Walsh

Overview

Can we build moral machines?
Artificial intelligence is an essential part of our lives – for better or worse. It can be used to influence what we buy, who gets shortlisted for a job and even how we vote. Without AI, medical technology wouldn't have come so far, we'd still be getting lost in our GPS-free cars, and smartphones wouldn't be so, well, smart. But as we continue to build more intelligent and autonomous machines, what impact will this have on humanity and the planet?
Professor Toby Walsh, a world-leading researcher in the field of artificial intelligence, explores the ethical considerations and unexpected consequences AI poses. Can AI be racist? Can robots have rights? What happens if a self-driving car kills someone? What limitations should we put on the use of facial recognition? Machines Behaving Badly is a thought-provoking look at the increasing human reliance on robotics and the decisions that need to be made now to ensure the future of AI is a force for good, not evil.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781803990842
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	05/26/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

TOBY WALSH is one of the world’s leading researchers in Artificial Intelligence. He is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales and leads a research group at Data61, Australia’s Centre of Excellence for ICT Research. He has been elected a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of AI for his contributions to AI research, and has won the prestigious Humboldt research award. He regularly appears on the BBC and writes for The Guardian, New Scientist, and The New York Times.

Table of Contents

AI 1

Strange intruders 5

Warning signs 8

Breaking bad 10

The People 12

The geeks taking over 12

The sea of dudes 15

The godfathers of AI 17

The crazy Valley 20

The shadow of Ayn Rand 23

Techno-libertarians 25

Transhumanists 27

Wishful thoughts 30

The Tenderloin 33

Project Maven 34

The Companies 37

The new titans 37

Nothing ventured 41

Super-intelligence 43

The climate emergency 44

Bad behaviour 47

Corporate values 51

Google's principles 52

IBM's thinking 55

Rethinking the corporation 58

Autonomy 61

A new challenge 61

The rubber hits the road 62

The upside 64

The downside 65

High stakes 68

How self-driving cars drive 71

Magnificent machines 74

Trolley problems 76

Moral machines 82

Killer robots 84

Laws banning LAWS 90

The rules of war 97

Humans v. Machines 103

Life 1.0 103

The demon in the machine 105

Emotions 108

Pain and suffering 109

AI = alien intelligence 110

Robot rights 114

Sophia the puppet 115

Human weaknesses 118

Ethical Rules 121

The last invention 121

Fictional rules 123

Responsible robots 125

The academy speaks 128

Europe leads 131

The ethics bandwagon 134

Human, not robot rights 136

This isn't the first time 138

Medical lessons 140

Powerful concerns 142

Fairness 145

Mutant algorithms 146

Predictive policing 150

Sentencing 151

Prediction errors 157

The Partnership 161

Alexa is racist 167

Alexa is sexist 171

Your computer boss 174

Insuring fairness 176

Algorithmic fairness 177

The future 179

Privacy 183

The history of privacy 185

Privacy and technology 187

Predicting the future 189

Intrusive platforms 190

Face recognition 193

The 'gaydar' machine 198

Trees in the forest 202

Analogue privacy 204

A private future 206

The Planet 210

Green AI 210

On the edge 213

Big Oil 215

Climate action 217

AI for good 219

The Way Ahead 222

Moral machines 222

Trusting AI 224

Transparency 228

Technical fixes 231

Regulatory fixes 233

Educational fixes 238

The gift of the machines 240

Epilogue: The Child of Our Brains 245

31 December 2061 245

About the Author 249

Acknowledgements 251

Notes 253

Index 265

Editorial Reviews

On Machines That Think:

“You’ve heard the hype; now read about the reality from one of the leading researchers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). In his elegant prose,Toby Walsh describes the past, present, and future of AI—culminating in ten tantalizing predictions for the impact of AI on medicine, transportation, entertainment, and more by 2050.”  —Oren Etzioni, CEO, Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence

“A whirlwind tour through the history and the future of AI—and why it matters to all of us. A must-read.” —Sebastian Thrun, founder of Google X, cofounder of Udacity, former professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University, and Google Fellow

“A comprehensive overview that avoids the hype and explains what AI can actually do, written by an expert practitioner of the field.” —Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, and coauthor of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach

“Walsh is one of those rare individuals who combine a deep knowledge of AI technology, a serious interest in its economic and social implications, and a verve for lively and engaging writing. If you want real insights about the coming future of machines that think better and faster than humans in more and more domains, then you need to read this book.” —Erik Brynjolfsson, professor at MIT and coauthor of The Second Machine Age and Machine, Platform, Crowd

“Walsh is a first-rate researcher in AI who transmits both an understanding of the history and current state of the field, and an educated speculation on its future trajectory and impacts.” —Subbarao Kambhampati, professor, Arizona State University, and president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

“Walsh’s story of how artificial intelligence evolved from the dreams of Alan Turing to a powerful technological force today is exciting, insightful, and incisive. Will his predictions about how AI will change life as we know it in the coming decades prove equally dead-on? I, for one, would not bet against him!” —Henry Kautz, past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and founding director of the Institute for Data Science, and professor at the University of Rochester


“This concise but clear and readable overview of the history, current status, and probable near future of AI is a welcome relief from a great deal of breathless hype we have been hearing recently. Toby Walsh’s expertise is welcome, but his levelheaded treatment is even more so.” —J. Storrs Hall, PhD, AI researcher and author of Beyond AI

From the Publisher