The actor Leslie Howard, who played Ashley Wilks in the Gone with the Wind movie, was killed during World War II when the airplane on which he was a passenger was shot down. After the war it was discovered that the English had broken the Enigma code and they knew that his plane was going to be targeted by the Luftwaffe. The British Military did not warn the plane or change its flight plan because they did not want to give the Germans an indication that the Enigma code had been compromised. Churchill once said that the information that they received from the Benchley code breakers reduced the length of the war by over a year. In the ethics of war, it was the opinion of the British leadership that the loss of one plane was less than the potential harm if Germany had found out that their enigma code had been broken.
It was revealed that a few years ago, the National Security Agency (NSA) had found a back door into the Microsoft computer operating system. The back door was called EternalBlue. NSA did not disclose the vulnerability to the manufacturers, because they wanted to use it for themselves. Unfortunately, the NSA was hacked by a group known as the Shadow Brokers. The Shadow Brokers published the vulnerability, and as a result, hackers from North Korea used it as a key to publishing the WannaCry ransomware. The WannaCry ransomware was particularly problematic for hospitals. I do not know if anyone died as a result of denial of services for any hospital. I hope not. Was the result of holding back on disclosing the vulnerability measured by the NSA? I bet not.
One of the more intriguing and little understood aspects of autonomous vehicles is the application of Isaac Asimov’s “The Three Laws of Robotics” (In his later life he added a fourth law)
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
- A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
Autonomous Vehicles will probably be the first practical introduction to the general population of serious ethics involving equipment and technology. From Asimov’s laws come the programmable ethics involving who lives and who dies (or is injured) in an AV crash. Does the car kill a passenger or the pedestrian if a crash cannot be avoided?
CRISPR Cas-9 is a virus gene splicing technology which allows humans to cut and splice any (plant and animal) gene. It costs less than five dollars and allows scientists to instantly cut genes as compared to what used to cost $30,000 and take months.
As a result, theoretically the human race will soon be able to eliminate all genetic diseases (such as Huntington’s or sickle cell anemia). Eventually this technology will also allow humans to design other humans, or even perhaps dial back our current bodies to when they were 17 years old (immortality perhaps?).
I recently saw an Op-ed piece in the MIT Technology review which said that the AI companies are not acknowledging that their technology can possibly eliminate many “Middle Class” jobs. One example they cited was the impending elimination of most transportation jobs. In my opinion, it is possible that AI will have a more severe impact on jobs in the developing nations than on what is currently called “First World Nations”. As with all things there is a yin and a yang for all such missives. Similar reports also indicate that over 80% of all jobs that our current crop of kindergarteners do not yet exist.
This was a very long introduction into the question of ethics and technology in our changing world.
A medical ethicist is already becoming an accepted part of the medical community. A medical ethicist is someone who offers guidance to patients, their families, and professional staff on ethical, legal and policy issues and concerns that stem from dealings between health care professionals and patients.
I believe that now more than ever we need a new professional (an ethicist) who should be embedded into government, education, claims administration and other businesses.
These people should have generally acknowledged skills in dealing with the greater questions of legal issues, and moral issues such as life, death, long and short-term impacts of the changing technology which we are experiencing.
The recent UBER problems are a great example of focus on growth and profit over ethical considerations.
Most of the world’s laws, rules and regulations are intended to provide ethical guard rails. However, the rapidly changing technology is sometimes in areas where there are no laws. One expects everyone to follow the “golden rule” but that rule becomes fungible when the focus is only on profit.
The single focus on the task at hand (such as attempting to protect national security by the NSA, splicing genes or making a car fully autonomous) sometimes does not encourage the greater questions of long and short term ethical considerations.
How will this process, or product impact individuals and our society? What are the potential impacts and how should we prepare for them?
We expect the CEO of organizations to ensure that ethics are a fundamental part of the organization and are followed. However at this level rarely are the questions of ethics raised.
Usually the internal audit department is focused on compliance rather than on fundamental causes of ethics violations. (How many people did X (punish them for doing it) not why did they do it?).
Economic incentives drive results. Usually problems result when there are mis-aligned incentives or people do not fully understand the very long term economic results when they are only focused on short term results. One powerful way to deal with the issues of ethics is to design methods to fully measure the financial and social impacts of decisions. It is possible that an Ethicist role may be founded in finance rather than in religion or human resources.
Without a designated ethicist in Governments, Universities, AI companies, Sedgwick, Broadspire, Google, Apple and Facebook, will probably be relatively successful in their short-term goals.
In my opinion, strategically embedding ethicists (who have enough power and authority to change the direction of the product or process) will result in better long-term success in government, better educated citizens, and more profitable companies.
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