[Wittrs] Robots and Ethical Choices
- From: whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:16:04 -0400
Just thought I'd throw some cat nip in here.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/canrobotsmakeethicaldecisions
I wonder whether anyone ever stopped to consider the question of whether
"robots making ethical choices" isn't really saying:
(a) Robots can do something ethics-like
(b) something robot-like can do something ethics-like
(c) humans can make robots immitate behaviors frequently called "ethics"
(d) ethics is as ethics does
(e) people cannot deploy ethics as a rule like many uses of the word
"bachelor." Hence, one is forbidden to assert "only humans can do ethics." (cf:
marriage is between ....)
(f) ethics is a calculus of some sort like gravity. (Cf: Newton discovered
gravity. No, he discovered its formula)
(e) technology is cool
If a dog does ethics, is it dog-ethics or just ethics? If it is dog-ethics, why
does it seem wrong to say that a robot does robot-ethics? Is it because the
robot is not functioning as a genre here? But why? Probably because it is
functioning as an immitation. And if one could obtain a perfect immitation, one
would want to say in language "it is doing ethics." (Of course, you could
program it to do dog-ethics as well).
If I said to you that a robot could do things not reserved for the grammar of
"robot," what will i have done to all of my other expressions? Would I then say
of an ordinary robot, "you're not a 'robot' at all' -- sort of in the way one
says to a whimpy person, "you aren't a man at all."
What is interesting in all of this is the nonsense of it all. The only true
headline is this: "technological capacity getting really cool." But the fools
won't see this. They'll get caught in the language game. They'll think
philosophic issues exist. Or that they have been impacted. They'll think either
ethics or humanity or equality or dogs are at stake. There isn't a thing here
to discuss other than to register the state of advancement of "robotics" and to
think about the implications of new toys. Or how it will affect politics and
society.
But there isn't one damn philosophical problem. Not one at all. All there is,
is the confusion people have when throwing around the term "robot" and
"ethics."
(Yours sent from opensubscriber to see if it works)
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