An ‘AI-first’ world is challenging ethics and society
As an active enthusiast in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) I, like Google am always thinking with my ‘AI-first’ hat on. ‘Can we streamline that manual process using advanced decision making systems?’ or ‘How could we use an AI powered natural language processing chat-bot to solve that customer query?’.
These are questions I often ask myself and pose to my fellow Partners.
My biggest take-away from Room Y is how important empathising with the end user is, putting our Partners or customers at the heart of the design process.
Many John Lewis and Waitrose customers and indeed our Partners value the way we as a Partnership operate, maintaining our high corporate social responsibility standards. With that in mind, when designing AI there are several considerations to be made.
First let’s take a step back and take a look at some real-life applications highlighted below:
- Robots — Japanese industrial firms have been competing to build humanoid robots acting as domestic helpers for the elderly and physically handicapped for some years.
- AI Software — This is now responsible for majority of the activity on Wall Street, transforming the financial industry’s ability to crunch numbers and make decisions at a rate in which no human could ever achieve.
- Autonomous Vehicles — Many vehicle manufacturers are testing the waters with this, with Elon Musk stating his new Tesla Model S will be driving from a car park in L.A. to New York by the end of the year with no human intervention required.
Ethical and social issues could arise from any of the above, though this is entirely dependent on the nature of the system and its functionality.
Ethical Issues
Robot Rights
Similar to human rights, a robot with a level of autonomy should have rights so that the moral obligations of society are considered. With the right to life, equality before the law and freedom of thoughts, contextual ethical issues are bound to arise.
With relation to Japanese domestic helpers, it can be argued that the use of robots here are to make human life easier, though from an ethical point of view, using human-like machines to carry out menial tasks could be seen as a form of slavery.
Human Dignity
To avoid breaching human dignity ethics, AI should perhaps not be used to replace those in positions that require both care and respect; such as customer services, nursing and the police force. However, based on recent developments it is evident that in the future there is potential for robots to take up such responsibilities.
Machine Ethics
Though it can be perceived as being implausible, Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at the University of Oxford, claims that AI has the capability to make humans entirely extinct. There is no direct evolutionary motivation for AI machines to be friendly to humans and AI machines may have their own evolutionary pressures as they compete with other similar machines.
There is no way of determining the extent of the capabilities a machine is able to acquire and what level of threat this might cause. So I suggest keeping a close eye on it…
Social Issues
An advantage to society is the creation of new jobs in relation to the profession. ABI Research recently found there was a correlation between the increase in robotics shipments with U.S. job growth. Another advantage AI creates is their ability to increase job satisfaction, by assisting with aspects of the role. For example, improved accuracy can be achieved which is vital within the financial services industry.
Although there are advantages related to a workforce with AI capabilities, many tasks that were once only performed by humans are likely to become redundant. Job losses and ultimately unemployment would increase, leading to a multitude of other issues impacting the economy and wider society.
Any further investments the Partnership makes into AI must prioritise the considerations of the highlighted impacts, but most importantly the John Lewis Partnership must remember to link back to Principle 1 of our constitution. Our ultimate purpose is the happiness of all our members (Partners), through worthwhile and satisfying employment in a successful business.
