AMA with Professor Nigel Shadbolt and Roger Hampson about their book: As If Human: Ethics and Artificial Intelligence – Tuesday 26 November 2024 6pm-8pm

[SophiaCMumsnet]

Hello,

We’re excited to announce that Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt and Roger Hampson, authors of As If Human will be joining us for an Ask Me Anything on Tuesday evening to discuss their Book.

Nigel is principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford. He is a leading researcher in Artificial Intelligence (AI). He is chairman of the Open Data Institute which he co-founded with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He was knighted in 2013 for services to science and engineering. He lives in Lymington, Hampshire.

Roger is an academic and public servant and former chief executive of the London Borough of Redbridge. He lives in Greenwich, London. Together in 2018 they published The Digital Ape: how to live (in peace) with smart machines, described as a ‘landmark book’.

As If Human, their most recent book, is a new approach to the challenges surrounding artificial intelligence that argues for assessing AI actions as if they came from a human being.

Intelligent machines present us every day with urgent ethical challenges. Is the facial recognition software used by an agency fair? When algorithms determine questions of justice, finance, health, and defence, are the decisions proportionate, equitable, transparent, and accountable? How do we harness this extraordinary technology to empower rather than oppress?

Despite increasingly sophisticated programming, artificial intelligences share none of our essential human characteristics—sentience, physical sensation, emotional responsiveness, versatile general intelligence. However, Nigel and Roger argue that if we assess AI decisions, products, and calls for action as if they came from a human being, we can avert a disastrous and amoral future. The authors go beyond the headlines about rampant robots to apply established moral principles in shaping our AI future. Their new framework constitutes a how-to for building a more ethical machine intelligence.

To celebrate the publication of As If Human, Yale University Press will be giving away copies to the first 10 users to post questions on the AMA thread. Winners' information will be used by Yale University Press to administer the giveaway in accordance with their privacy policy which you can read here. The giveaway is open to users resident in the UK only and books will be posted out within two weeks after the AMA thread has closed.

Please post your questions below. Nigel and Roger will be answering questions tomorrow evening (between 6pm-8pm). As always, please remember our guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered, and please keep it civil.

Thanks,
MNHQ

Let us try to cheer you up! We should remember that robots can hoover and cut the grass, a smart chip selects your washing cycles etc. etc. We believe that human creativity remains alive and well - artists haven't stopped painting, musicians haven't stopped composing, humans still enjoy chess despite the fact that machines have been beating for thirty years. We derive pleasure, and a sense of accomplishment from our acts of creation.

Definitely read the book :) Yes we do think that AI can be enormously helpful both in subtle clinical decisions, and in routine administration. Whatever else it can or can't do AI is very good at prioritising queues based on expert medical knowledge. There will still be a need to review of how such decisions impact patients and stack. One of the countries largest problems is that there are fewer and fewer people in the workforce supporting a growing number of the elderly. AI will supplement the workforce and not replace it.

Well, that is all very well but ut us not thw reality of the marketplace, is it? Vast swathes of illustrative, music and writing work has already gone over to AI. Are artists and writers really going to be like lamplighters becayse they are economically unable to sustain their creative practice?

AI translation lacks all thosr things and, crucially, the ability to take responsibility if anything goes wring and someone dies / goes to prison / loses custody of their kids / gets deported as a result. It also creates a huge skills gap at profession entry level that will severely curtail the ability of expert humans to exercise oversight.

AI's can and do act autonomously - without being conscious such systems still need guardrails. This is why there is concern about deployment of autonomous AI weapons systems.

Systems could learn goals that that emerge via their interactions with the environment - we need to remain vigilant to the behaviours and performance of our AI systems - these issues arise ahead of can appearance of consciousness.

In our book we attempt to show how AI can embody human virtues - we take a mixed philosophy view on ethics - drawing on ideas from a wide range of ethical frameworks over three millennia.

The last paragraph of our book outlines a set of guiding principles -

A thing should say what it is and be what it says.
Artificial intelligences should show respect for human beings.
Artificial intelligences are only ethical if they embody the best human values. Artificial intelligences should be transparent and accountable to humans. Humans have a right to be judged by humans if they so wish.
Decisions that affect a lot of humans should involve a lot of humans.
The future of humanity must not be decided in private by vested interests.

Shadbolt, Nigel; Hampson, Roger. As If Human: Ethics and Artificial Intelligence (pp. 234-235). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Hundreds of codes for ethical AI have been issued - for example Microsoft's presents sensible guidance for developing AI systems

https://cdn-dynmedia-1.microsoft.com/is/content/microsoftcorp/microsoft/final/en-us/microsoft-brand/documents/Microsoft-Responsible-AI-Standard-General-Requirements.pdf?culture=en-gb&country=gb

The market place for creative products is larger than its ever been - UK publishing revenue in 2023 exceeded £7 billion for the first time - the link to this article is interesting too https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2024/06/23/generative-ai-as-a-killer-of-creative-jobs-hold-that-thought/

How about the ethics of whether we should even be using AI in the first place?

Thanks, I will read that though I am skeptical as I see it happening already. I do not want art to return to being a hobby for the well-heeled, as your first post on the topic seemed to suggest.

The Forbes article seems to suggest that composers just have to retrain as UX product designers and all will be well 🤔

If we take the example of medicine - medical schools are not going to stop training doctors - no matter now much AI systems augment medical diagnosis, health care administration etc. Your point about potential skills gaps is well taken - human oversight is always important and should not be forgone.

But (to take my job as an example) no twenty-year-old is going to sign up to become an entry-level translator because AI can do that work just as well, so there is no apprenticeship to reach the upper echelons to exercise that oversight in what can be a safety-critical industry. You do not want unsupervised AI translating your nuclear waste disposal content, for instance. It is a real problem coming at us down the pipeline.

My tone is perhaps a bit pugnacious, for which apologies, but I remain (thoroughly) unconvinced that AI is overall a force for good given the huge environmental threat, severe labour and IP issues and threat to the human creative industries. Taking the "tedium" out of creative practice when the "tedium" of honing your craft is the whole point.

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to do this!

Thanks again to Roger and Nigel and to MNHQ for organising. It is perhaps not very fair to keep this going since presumably they won't be coming back to the thread but I would like to come back on a couple of their points.

• surely the only environmentally ethical AI system is one you don't build in the first place, unless you can demonstrate that the positive environmental impact of using it outweighs building and running it.
• I would like to have heard more about how Sam Altman et al can be induced to engage with ethical data harvesting and tagging. As someone who has had my IP harvested without my knowledge and consent, I would love to put a stop to this.
• A premium on indigenous knowledge to feed into the machines? Yes I an sure that will go down well with indigenous peoples. How can they stop their ancestral lore becoming "premium content"?
• people are still doing art, but they are increasingly unlikely to be paid to do art in several sectors, which restricts who has access to doing art. Your ability to do art is curtailed if you are working all day to make ends meet rather than getting paid to play the violin or whatever.
• Spotify as a successful arts economy model? Really? Not for the vast, vast majority of performers.
• The Forbes article takes a pretty restrictive view of what the creative industries entail. Should unemployed musicians etc who have lost their living just retrain for cyber tech? Is that the ideal social solution?

Hi, many thanks for the offer of a book, which I would like to accept. However, I am finding it really difficult to type a reply to your PM; the cursor keeps jumping out of the text box every time I start typing. I never had this before; is there another way I can send you my details please, thanks.

@Gunnersforthecup you could try emailing them [email protected]

Many thanks to you for your very thoughtful contributions. Everything you mention is a very live issue. Some of your points at least we think we cover in our book. Do read it if you can find the time, and let us know on this thread whether you are at least partly persuaded. Or give us more good reasons to change our minds. We will check back from time to time.

All best wishes to you and everyone on the thread. We have enjoyed it.

Thanks NigelandRoger, good of you to check in! I will have a look at the book.