Joshua Greene, Francesca Rossi, John Tasioulas, Kristen Brent Venable, & Brian Williams
Proceedings of the Thirtieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-16)
Abstract
The future will see autonomous machines acting in the same environment as humans, in areas as diverse as driving, assistive technology, and health care. Think of self-driving cars, companion robots, and medical diagnosis support systems. We also believe that humans and machines will often need to work together and agree on common decisions. Thus hybrid collective decision making systems will be in great need. In this scenario, both machines and collective decision making systems should follow some form of moral values and ethical principles (appropriate to where they will act but always aligned to humans’), as well as safety constraints. In fact, humans would accept and trust more machines that behave as ethically as other humans in the same environment. Also, these principles would make it easier for machines to determine their actions and explain their behavior in terms understandable by humans. Moreover, often machines and humans will need to make decisions together, either through consensus or by reaching a compromise. This would be facilitated by shared moral values and ethical principles.
The article is here.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Inside OpenAI
Cade Metz
Wired.com
Originally posted April 27, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
OpenAI will release its first batch of AI software, a toolkit for building artificially intelligent systems by way of a technology called “reinforcement learning”—one of the key technologies that, among other things, drove the creation of AlphaGo, the Google AI that shocked the world by mastering the ancient game of Go. With this toolkit, you can build systems that simulate a new breed of robot, play Atari games, and, yes, master the game of Go.
But game-playing is just the beginning. OpenAI is a billion-dollar effort to push AI as far as it will go. In both how the company came together and what it plans to do, you can see the next great wave of innovation forming. We’re a long way from knowing whether OpenAI itself becomes the main agent for that change. But the forces that drove the creation of this rather unusual startup show that the new breed of AI will not only remake technology, but remake the way we build technology.
The article is here.
Wired.com
Originally posted April 27, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
OpenAI will release its first batch of AI software, a toolkit for building artificially intelligent systems by way of a technology called “reinforcement learning”—one of the key technologies that, among other things, drove the creation of AlphaGo, the Google AI that shocked the world by mastering the ancient game of Go. With this toolkit, you can build systems that simulate a new breed of robot, play Atari games, and, yes, master the game of Go.
But game-playing is just the beginning. OpenAI is a billion-dollar effort to push AI as far as it will go. In both how the company came together and what it plans to do, you can see the next great wave of innovation forming. We’re a long way from knowing whether OpenAI itself becomes the main agent for that change. But the forces that drove the creation of this rather unusual startup show that the new breed of AI will not only remake technology, but remake the way we build technology.
The article is here.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Legal Insanity and Executive Function
Katrina Sifferd, William Hirstein, and Tyler Fagan
Under review to be included in The Insanity Defense: Multidisciplinary Views on Its History, Trends, and Controversies (Mark D. White, Ed.) Praeger (expected Nov. 2016)
1. The cognitive capacities relevant to legal insanity
Legal insanity is a legal concept rather than a medical one. This may seem an obvious point, but it is worth reflecting on the divergent purposes and motivations for legal, as opposed to medical, concepts. Medical categories of disease are shaped by the medical professions’ aims of understanding, diagnosing, and treating illness. Categories of legal excuse, on the other hand, serve the aims of determining criminal guilt and punishment.
A theory of legal responsibility and its criteria should exhibit symmetry between the capacities it posits as necessary for moral, and more specifically, legal agency, and the capacities that, when dysfunctional or compromised, qualify a defendant for an excuse. To put this point more strongly, the capacities necessary for legal agency should necessarily disqualify one from legal culpability when sufficiently compromised. Thus one’s view of legal insanity ought to reflect whatever one thinks are the overall purposes of the criminal law. If the purpose of criminal punishment is social order, then legal agency entails the capacity to be law-abiding such that one does not undermine the social order. If the purpose is institutionalized moral blame for wrongful acts, then legal agency entails the capacities for moral agency. If a criminal code embraces a hybrid theory of criminal law, then all of these capacities are relevant to legal agency.
In this chapter we will argue that the capacities necessary to moral and legal agency can be understood as executive functions in the brain.
The chapter is here.
Under review to be included in The Insanity Defense: Multidisciplinary Views on Its History, Trends, and Controversies (Mark D. White, Ed.) Praeger (expected Nov. 2016)
1. The cognitive capacities relevant to legal insanity
Legal insanity is a legal concept rather than a medical one. This may seem an obvious point, but it is worth reflecting on the divergent purposes and motivations for legal, as opposed to medical, concepts. Medical categories of disease are shaped by the medical professions’ aims of understanding, diagnosing, and treating illness. Categories of legal excuse, on the other hand, serve the aims of determining criminal guilt and punishment.
A theory of legal responsibility and its criteria should exhibit symmetry between the capacities it posits as necessary for moral, and more specifically, legal agency, and the capacities that, when dysfunctional or compromised, qualify a defendant for an excuse. To put this point more strongly, the capacities necessary for legal agency should necessarily disqualify one from legal culpability when sufficiently compromised. Thus one’s view of legal insanity ought to reflect whatever one thinks are the overall purposes of the criminal law. If the purpose of criminal punishment is social order, then legal agency entails the capacity to be law-abiding such that one does not undermine the social order. If the purpose is institutionalized moral blame for wrongful acts, then legal agency entails the capacities for moral agency. If a criminal code embraces a hybrid theory of criminal law, then all of these capacities are relevant to legal agency.
In this chapter we will argue that the capacities necessary to moral and legal agency can be understood as executive functions in the brain.
The chapter is here.
Saturday, May 14, 2016
On the Source of Human Irrationality
Oaksford, Mike et al.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences , Volume 20 , Issue 5 , 336 - 344
Summary
Reasoning and decision making are error prone. This is often attributed to a fast, phylogenetically old System 1. It is striking, however, that perceptuo-motor decision making in humans and animals is rational. These results are consistent with perceptuo-motor strategies emerging in Bayesian brain theory that also appear in human data selection. People seem to have access, although limited, to unconscious generative models that can generalise to explain other verbal reasoning results. Error does not emerge predominantly from System 1, but rather seems to emerge from the later evolved System 2 that involves working memory and language. However language also sows the seeds of error correction by moving reasoning into the social domain. This reversal of roles suggests key areas of theoretical integration and new empirical directions.
Trends
System 1 is supposedly the main cause of human irrationality. However, recent work on animal decision making, human perceptuo-motor decision making, and logical intuitions shows that this phylogenetically older system is rational.
Bayesian brain theory has recently proposed perceptuo-motor strategies identical to strategies proposed in Bayesian approaches to conscious verbal reasoning, suggesting that similar generative models are available at both levels.
Recent approaches to conditional inference using causal Bayes nets confirm this account, which can also generalise to logical intuitions.
People have only imperfect access to System 1. Errors arise from inadequate interrogation of System 1, working memory limitations, and mis-description of our records of these interrogations. However, there is evidence that such errors may be corrected by moving reasoning to the social domain facilitated by language.
The article is here.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences , Volume 20 , Issue 5 , 336 - 344
Summary
Reasoning and decision making are error prone. This is often attributed to a fast, phylogenetically old System 1. It is striking, however, that perceptuo-motor decision making in humans and animals is rational. These results are consistent with perceptuo-motor strategies emerging in Bayesian brain theory that also appear in human data selection. People seem to have access, although limited, to unconscious generative models that can generalise to explain other verbal reasoning results. Error does not emerge predominantly from System 1, but rather seems to emerge from the later evolved System 2 that involves working memory and language. However language also sows the seeds of error correction by moving reasoning into the social domain. This reversal of roles suggests key areas of theoretical integration and new empirical directions.
Trends
System 1 is supposedly the main cause of human irrationality. However, recent work on animal decision making, human perceptuo-motor decision making, and logical intuitions shows that this phylogenetically older system is rational.
Bayesian brain theory has recently proposed perceptuo-motor strategies identical to strategies proposed in Bayesian approaches to conscious verbal reasoning, suggesting that similar generative models are available at both levels.
Recent approaches to conditional inference using causal Bayes nets confirm this account, which can also generalise to logical intuitions.
People have only imperfect access to System 1. Errors arise from inadequate interrogation of System 1, working memory limitations, and mis-description of our records of these interrogations. However, there is evidence that such errors may be corrected by moving reasoning to the social domain facilitated by language.
The article is here.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Madness
By Eyal Press
The New Yorker
Originally posted May 2, 2016
Here are two excerpts:
By the nineties, prisons had become America’s dominant mental-health institutions. The situation is particularly extreme in Florida, which spends less money per capita on mental health than any state except Idaho. Meanwhile, between 1996 and 2014, the number of Florida prisoners with mental disabilities grew by a hundred and fifty-three per cent.
(cut)
After the Herald article appeared, Jerry Cummings, the warden, was placed on administrative leave, and many people questioned whether the Department of Corrections had tried to cover up a case of lethal abuse. Far less attention was paid to why an inmate had exposed it, rather than one of the prison’s mental-health or medical professionals. The duty to protect patients from harm is a core principle of medical ethics. According to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, an offshoot of the American Medical Association which issues standards of care for prisons, any mental-health professional who is aware of abuse is obligated “to report this activity to the appropriate authorities.”
The article is here.
The New Yorker
Originally posted May 2, 2016
Here are two excerpts:
By the nineties, prisons had become America’s dominant mental-health institutions. The situation is particularly extreme in Florida, which spends less money per capita on mental health than any state except Idaho. Meanwhile, between 1996 and 2014, the number of Florida prisoners with mental disabilities grew by a hundred and fifty-three per cent.
(cut)
After the Herald article appeared, Jerry Cummings, the warden, was placed on administrative leave, and many people questioned whether the Department of Corrections had tried to cover up a case of lethal abuse. Far less attention was paid to why an inmate had exposed it, rather than one of the prison’s mental-health or medical professionals. The duty to protect patients from harm is a core principle of medical ethics. According to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, an offshoot of the American Medical Association which issues standards of care for prisons, any mental-health professional who is aware of abuse is obligated “to report this activity to the appropriate authorities.”
The article is here.
Relaxing Moral Reasoning to Win: How Organizational Identification Relates to Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior.
Mo Chen, Chao C. Chen, and Oliver J. Sheldon
Journal of Applied Psychology, Apr 21 , 2016
Abstract
Drawing on social identity theory and social–cognitive theory, we hypothesize that organizational identification predicts unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) through the mediation of moral disengagement. We further propose that competitive interorganizational relations enhance the hypothesized relationships. Three studies conducted in China and the United States using both survey and vignette methodologies provided convergent support for our model. Study 1 revealed that higher organizational identifiers engaged in more UPB, and that this effect was mediated by moral disengagement. Study 2 found that organizational identification once again predicted UPB through the mediation of moral disengagement, and that the mediation relationship was stronger when employees perceived a higher level of industry competition. Finally, Study 3 replicated the above findings using a vignette experiment to provide stronger evidence of causality. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
An excerpt from the Managerial Implications section:
"In addition to these theoretical contributions, it is also worth briefly touching upon some implications of the present research for managerial practice. Unethical behaviors have proven costly for organizations (Cialdini et al., 2004), especially those behaviors conducted in the name of the organization, which are more likely to undermine stakeholders' organizational trust or even cause the collapse of an organization. In view of the dark side of organizational identification, managers should be aware of blind allegiance and loyalty to the organization among their employees and instead emphasize the importance of social responsibility and caring for all stakeholders. The linkage between organizational identification and moral disengagement we document here suggests that loyal organizational members are under greater pressure to relax their moral reasoning to execute their citizenship behavior, especially when stakes are high in a competitive environment. To counterbalance the tendency toward moral disengagement, organizations and managers need to clearly highlight the importance of hyper ethical values in organizational policies and practices and integrate such ethical standards into managerial decision-making. At the same time, organizations should strive to create a culture of social responsibility so as to reduce UPB (May et al., 2015) and reinforce ethical pro-organizational behavior."
The article is here.
Journal of Applied Psychology, Apr 21 , 2016
Abstract
Drawing on social identity theory and social–cognitive theory, we hypothesize that organizational identification predicts unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) through the mediation of moral disengagement. We further propose that competitive interorganizational relations enhance the hypothesized relationships. Three studies conducted in China and the United States using both survey and vignette methodologies provided convergent support for our model. Study 1 revealed that higher organizational identifiers engaged in more UPB, and that this effect was mediated by moral disengagement. Study 2 found that organizational identification once again predicted UPB through the mediation of moral disengagement, and that the mediation relationship was stronger when employees perceived a higher level of industry competition. Finally, Study 3 replicated the above findings using a vignette experiment to provide stronger evidence of causality. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
An excerpt from the Managerial Implications section:
"In addition to these theoretical contributions, it is also worth briefly touching upon some implications of the present research for managerial practice. Unethical behaviors have proven costly for organizations (Cialdini et al., 2004), especially those behaviors conducted in the name of the organization, which are more likely to undermine stakeholders' organizational trust or even cause the collapse of an organization. In view of the dark side of organizational identification, managers should be aware of blind allegiance and loyalty to the organization among their employees and instead emphasize the importance of social responsibility and caring for all stakeholders. The linkage between organizational identification and moral disengagement we document here suggests that loyal organizational members are under greater pressure to relax their moral reasoning to execute their citizenship behavior, especially when stakes are high in a competitive environment. To counterbalance the tendency toward moral disengagement, organizations and managers need to clearly highlight the importance of hyper ethical values in organizational policies and practices and integrate such ethical standards into managerial decision-making. At the same time, organizations should strive to create a culture of social responsibility so as to reduce UPB (May et al., 2015) and reinforce ethical pro-organizational behavior."
The article is here.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Harm Mediates the Disgust-Immorality Link
Chelsea Schein, Ryan Ritter, & Kurt Gray
Emotion, in press
Abstract
Many acts are disgusting, but only some of these acts are immoral. Dyadic morality predicts that
disgusting acts should be judged as immoral to the extent that they seem harmful. Consistent
with this prediction, three studies reveal that perceived harm mediates the link between feelings
of disgust and moral condemnation—even for ostensibly harmless “purity” violations. In many
cases, accounting for perceived harm completely eliminates the link between disgust and moral
condemnation. Analyses also reveal the predictive power of anger and typicality/weirdness in
moral judgments of disgusting acts. The mediation of disgust by harm holds across diverse acts
including gay marriage, sex acts, and religious blasphemy. Revealing the endogenous presence
and moral relevance of harm within disgusting-but-ostensibly-harmless acts argues against
modular accounts of moral cognition such as moral foundations theory. Instead, these data
support pluralistic conceptions of harm and constructionist accounts of morality and emotion.
Implications for moral cognition and the concept of “purity” are discussed.
The article is here.
Emotion, in press
Abstract
Many acts are disgusting, but only some of these acts are immoral. Dyadic morality predicts that
disgusting acts should be judged as immoral to the extent that they seem harmful. Consistent
with this prediction, three studies reveal that perceived harm mediates the link between feelings
of disgust and moral condemnation—even for ostensibly harmless “purity” violations. In many
cases, accounting for perceived harm completely eliminates the link between disgust and moral
condemnation. Analyses also reveal the predictive power of anger and typicality/weirdness in
moral judgments of disgusting acts. The mediation of disgust by harm holds across diverse acts
including gay marriage, sex acts, and religious blasphemy. Revealing the endogenous presence
and moral relevance of harm within disgusting-but-ostensibly-harmless acts argues against
modular accounts of moral cognition such as moral foundations theory. Instead, these data
support pluralistic conceptions of harm and constructionist accounts of morality and emotion.
Implications for moral cognition and the concept of “purity” are discussed.
The article is here.
Business students: time for a compulsory ethics major?
Erica Cervini
Sydney Morning Herald
Originally posted on April 24, 2016
Here are two excerpts:
While it is commendable that universities are attempting to make students think about business ethics, one unit can only scratch the surface. And, then it depends on how much theory students are getting and to what extent this is applied to real-world cases.
Universities are failing students and society if they see ethics units as separate to students' accounting, banking and entrepreneurship subjects. Ethics has to be embedded in business and management subjects so that it is reinforced.
(cut)
She explained there are scholars who are against teaching business ethics while there are others who argue that students' views can be swayed in ethics classes.
Dr Issa concludes that business school academics need to be "more aware of our impact on those individuals whom we graduate into the business world, and what impact they have on their communities and societies".
The article is here.
Sydney Morning Herald
Originally posted on April 24, 2016
Here are two excerpts:
While it is commendable that universities are attempting to make students think about business ethics, one unit can only scratch the surface. And, then it depends on how much theory students are getting and to what extent this is applied to real-world cases.
Universities are failing students and society if they see ethics units as separate to students' accounting, banking and entrepreneurship subjects. Ethics has to be embedded in business and management subjects so that it is reinforced.
(cut)
She explained there are scholars who are against teaching business ethics while there are others who argue that students' views can be swayed in ethics classes.
Dr Issa concludes that business school academics need to be "more aware of our impact on those individuals whom we graduate into the business world, and what impact they have on their communities and societies".
The article is here.
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Judge Grants Torture Victims Their First Chance to Pursue Justice
Jenna McLaughlin
The Intercept
Originally published April 22, 2016
A civil suit against the architects of the CIA’s torture program, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, will be allowed to proceed, a federal judge in Spokane, Washington, decided on Friday.
District Judge Justin Quackenbush denied the pair’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit launched against them on behalf of three victims, one dead, of the brutal tactics they designed.
“This is amazing, this is unprecedented,” Steven Watt, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union representing the plaintiffs, told The Intercept after the hearing. “This is the first step towards accountability.”
The article is here.
The Intercept
Originally published April 22, 2016
A civil suit against the architects of the CIA’s torture program, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, will be allowed to proceed, a federal judge in Spokane, Washington, decided on Friday.
District Judge Justin Quackenbush denied the pair’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit launched against them on behalf of three victims, one dead, of the brutal tactics they designed.
“This is amazing, this is unprecedented,” Steven Watt, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union representing the plaintiffs, told The Intercept after the hearing. “This is the first step towards accountability.”
The article is here.
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