Ethical dilemmas: Ned Ludd and the ethical machine

摘要

Smith (2021) in 'Perhaps Ned Ludd had a point?', alerts us to pay attention not only to the great ethical and theoretical issues, but also to the ways in which actual human lives are impacted by what we think, say and do. We should be vigilant of a widespread tendency to both overestimate the pace and underestimate the extent of change of advanced technologies in a variety of real-world contexts. It may be tempting to be consumed by a positivistic and empirical world view that focuses on 'how humans judge machines' and not on 'how humans could and should judge machines' (Gill 2019). The human-centred ethos of AI&Society asks us to transcend this techno-centric view, and explore not just the 'how' question, but also the 'could' and 'should' questions. In exploring these questions, we need to be mindful of the concern that, for example, algorithmic aversion may risk rejecting technology that could improve social welfare and we may 'fail to recognise the consequences of technology when we show a positive bias towards algorithms.' (Gill 2020, 2021). Whilst the techno-centric paradigm tends to provide efficiency, precision and replicability of technological innovations, the human-centred paradigm promotes creativity, flexibility, and resilience. Those who seek the tradeoff between efficiency and flexibility face ethical challenges that designers of all technologies face.