From “Fake News” to Fake ethics

[Shishirgano9]

This phenomenon is an example of “ethics-washing.” The industry organizes and cultivates ethics debates to buy time—to distract the public and prevent—or at least delay—effective regulation and policymaking. Politicians also like to set up ethics committees because it gives them a plan of action when, given the complexity of the issues, they simply don’t know what to do—and that’s human nature. At the same time, however, the industry is building one “ethics washing machine” after another. Facebook has invested in TU Munich—funding an institute to train AI ethicists. Similarly, until recently, Google had hired philosophers Joanna Bryson and Luciano .

Floridi to serve on an “ethics committee,” which was abruptly shut el salvador mobile database down a week after its launch. Had this not happened, Google would have had direct access via Luciano Floridi, a member of the HLEG AI, to the process by which this group will develop policy and investment recommendations for the European Union starting this month. This would have been a strategic triumph for the American conglomerate. Since industry acts faster and more efficiently than politics or academia, there is a risk that, as in the case of “Fake News”, we now have a problem with fake ethics , including a number of conceptual smokescreens, highly paid industrial philosophers, self-invented quality labels and unvalidated certificates for “AI ethics made in Europe”.

Given this situation, who could now develop ethically convincing “red lines” for AI? In reality, it seems that this can only be done by the new European Commission, which begins its work after the summer. Donald Trump’s America is morally discredited; he has self-excluded himself. And China? Just like in America, there are many intelligent and well-intentioned people, and for the sake of AI safety, it could, as a totalitarian state, enforce any directive in a binding manner. But the implementation of AI-based mass surveillance of its 1.4 billion citizens is already well underway; we cannot expect any real ethics. As “digital totalitarianism 2.0,” China is not an acceptable source for serious ethical discussions. Europe must now bear the burden of real historical responsibility.