This New Study Reveals How People Feel About AI Making Moral Judgements

With AI systems advancing at such a rapid rate, there may come a time when this form of tech is asked to make moral judgements on our behalf. In spite of the fact that this is the case, many have been concerned about the ability of an AI to weigh in on issues that require complex moral frameworks. A study conducted in China which was recently published in Behavioral Sciences provided some more insight into the matter at hand.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that people tend to base their opinions on the context. The morality of a decision which is rendered by AI can be greatly altered by the type of situation it was made in, and this needs to be factored in whenever these decisions are being discussed.

In one of the tests that were conducted, participants were provided the standard trolley dilemma. Essentially, participants were asked to say if they felt like the agent in charge should pull the switch to ensure that fewer people die, or if the AI should do nothing at all. When told that an AI would be making the decision, participants said that taking an action to ensure fewer deaths was not moral.

However, it bears mentioning that these participants did not feel the same way if the individual in question was a human rather than an AI. This seems to suggest that the participants believe that AI does not possess enough agency to provide such consequential moral judgements.

The primary finding that is worth looking into here is that people adopt a different set of moral requirements for humans than for AI. Such a difference is quite intriguing because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up determining how people would react to AI making decisions on their behalf. The future of AI may depend on whether or not people are willing to hand it the reigns of various essential actions that need to be committed to all in all.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World