IS YOUR TOASTER A MORAL AGENT?
While the rest of us are still taking baby steps towards the solution of bioethical conundrums involving unborn people, sick people and dying people, more adventurous minds are pole-vaulting ahead to create a bioethics for machines. The recent Singularity Summit in San Francisco, an annual event held to discuss how to prepare for a super-human artificial intelligence which will make human intelligence irrelevant, featured a serious discussion of machine morality.
Wendell Wallach, of Yale University, is trying to create Artificial Moral Agents (AMAs) which have supra-rational faculties. In some respects, they might even be more moral than men. "Is the absence of a nervous system subject to emotional hijacking a moral advantage?" asked Wallach. However, he acknowledged that programming computers with emotions, sociability, embodiment of the world, empathy, consciousness and theory of mind will be extremely challenging.
- How long can you put off seeing the doctor because of lockdowns? - December 3, 2021
- House of Lords debates assisted suicide—again - October 28, 2021
- Spanish government tries to restrict conscientious objection - October 28, 2021
More Stories
Last Australian state finally launches ‘assisted dying’
As of November 28, eligible people in New South Wales can request “voluntary assisted dying”. NSW was the last Australian...
Two opposing conferences on population this weekend: one proudly pro-natalist, one dismally pro-extinction
Declining rates of fertility around the globe are slowly creeping into headlines and the conference circuit. This weekend, there will...
Do women suffer from depression after their abortions?
“It’s important for folks to know that abortion does not cause mental health problems,” Debra Mollen, of Texas Woman’s University,...
A sperm donor’s can of worms
Assuming that letters to Slate’s agony aunt are 100% the real deal is a bit dangerous. A failed novelist in...
Al-Jazeera investigates euthanasia in Canada
Most people are completely ignorant of how radical Canada's right-to-die legislation has become. This documentary from Al-Jazeera exposes the incredible...
Do gender-questioning kids need psychotherapy rather than hormones?
If you consult the “Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy” page of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, you will discover that...