To the Roboethics, cut off their heads!

Let them cut off their heads! it is a resounding elocution that was once brandished by both conservatives and revolutionaries, depending on the opportune moment in history, and that is currently popular as an identity expression of the rabid Red Queen, the evil antagonist of Alice in Wonderland. However, regardless of who the radical wields such a sharp will, the truth is that the phrase itself denotes a clear intention to completely eradicate a discomfort of a social nature, which does not implicitly entail the eradication of its cause. Well, as we all know, in a causal world, whoever does not manage causes does not solve effects. As much as we adopt the pose of the three wise monkeys that, because they do not want to see Evil, nor hear Evil, nor speak of Evil, are very little wise.

Personally, I find that the exalting bloodthirsty phrase evoked by the expression Let them cut off their heads! I do not think it has been so forcefully coined since the last vehement cry of the republicans against the royalists at the time of the French Revolution, until the present time, it seems to have been reinstated in the midst of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution that confronts Robotics and Roboethics. In this case, the Robotics are the participants of the big technology companies, which put the development of AI at all costs to the detriment and disregard of the possible futures of man himself; and being the Roboethics the free thinkers, of multisectoral origin, who reflect on the sociological and even ontological implications of AI with respect to the human being, as guardians of the humanist fire.

-To the Robotics, cut off their heads!,- yell the Robotics in a pack from a closed office and glass in hand, while they continue to maintain a “politically correct” composure facing the gallery. The reason is clear, the Robotics do not even want to hear about the possible potential risks for our species that the current uncontrolled development (intentionally or due to technical incompetence) of AI entails (1), because in this they see the sustainability endangered of his goose that lays the golden eggs: the unrestrained competitive innovation of smart consumer goods (for progressively less smart consumers) (2). At the same time, they are not interested in bad publicity that negatively affects the marketing of their corporate brand and, by extension, the reputation of their commercial consumables. The solution, therefore, is clear to them in an exercise that is as determined as it is effective in closing the circle: cutting off the heads of the Roboethics, if possible through a clean bisection and with the greatest possible stealth. So much so that, even though it is not headline news for tabloids and various newscasts for the general public, Microsoft has just fired the staff of workers who ensured that its AI is ethical and responsible (3), just as Twitter has done the same with the department of Ethics for machine learning and human rights (4), an anti-roboethics movement that has been joined by Meta (formerly Facebook) and Amazon (5), without forgetting Google, which recently fired its head of AI Ethics for speaking out about the dangers of current developments in AI (6). A full-fledged contemporary techno-crusade, as we can see, of Robotics versus Roboethics.

What is clear, in light of recent events, is that the Roboethics have been purged from large technology companies in their invaluable and necessary function of guaranteeing compliance with ethical and social responsibility standards, and therefore of ensuring for the safeguarding of fundamental human rights, in the current race for the development of an AI that is as omnipresent as soon as it is omnipotent. Thus being relegated to the private sphere of humanist reflexive resistance, waiting for statistics of the collective conversion towards a dystopian society. At this point, what other battle is left for the Roboethics to present against the hegemonic Robotics? There will be those who think, by deductive logic, that the only feasible way is to regulate political power through legislation. However, it is well known that Robotics, as the indisputable owners of the Market in the current digital society, de facto exercise the function of State within States, so it is no coincidence that today there is not even a roboethical regulation global, nor is there an international regulatory authority on AI. Well, as Quevedo already pointed out at the beginning of the s. XVII, powerful gentleman is Mr. Money.

Exposed to which, we Roboethics only have the practicable path of social awareness left, from our particular thinking watchtowers, which leads to a change of collective mentality about the urgent need for a humanist control of AI. A task that, by the way, appears arduous because it is precisely the AI ​​that begins to control both the sources of knowledge and the public flow of information of the average human being (7). But everything and so, there is still room for hope, if rationality and speed through we are able to introduce, in the current training modules or academic careers related to AI, Roboethics as a transversal and obligatory subject in the curricula of the new generations. A subject that, it should be noted, today is conspicuous by its total absence. Otherwise, let us prepare for the Robotics to implement a new and disruptive Ethics without notable resistance, which will be anything but human. And that the Roboethics, progressively, let’s go extinct by natural succession of intergenerational change.

As an eighty-year-old humanist friend told me recently after my latest AI book: I offer my condolences for the world in which you will have to live. I sincerely hope that one day far away I will be able to laugh at his failed prophecy when I remember, pipe in mouth from the privacy of my office, his words.

References

(1) The AI ​​Consciousness is awakening. Are we going to do something about it?. Jesús A. Mármol. Medium, May 6, 2023 https://acortar.link/4pp4q6

(2) Are ChatBots going to make us dumber?. Jesús A. Mármol. Medium, January 2, 2023 https://acortar.link/sLoZei

(3) Microsoft fires workers who ensured that ChatGPT and its other artificial intelligences were ethical and responsible. Roberto Corrales. Business Insider, March 14, 2023 https://acortar.link/owlFt7

(4) Elon Musk fired 3,700 Twitter workers days ago. Barbara Becares. Genbeta, November 7, 2022 https://acortar.link/30R4MW

(5) Microsoft, Google and Meta cut their ethics teams amid the boom in artificial intelligence. Juan Carlos Figueroa. Hypertext, March 29, 2023 https://acortar.link/pDJiFx

(6) Google fired this woman for warning of the dangers of AI: “They are robbing us all.” Manuel Angel Mendez. The Confidential, April 18, 2023 https://acortar.link/oGdZD1

(7) The three AI tactics to create the new False Reality (and submit us in the process). Jesús A. Mármol. Medium, April 21, 2023 https://acortar.link/rG6Qde