Artificial Intelligence Research Assignment Paper

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Social, Moral and Ethical Impact of Artificial Intelligence
Introduction
Artificial Intelligence is a term coined by John Mc Carthy in 1956 is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines such as computer programs CITATION Rod07 \l 1033 (Fennell). Artificial intelligence has also been defined as the study and design of intelligent agents. It is a branch of computer science that is perceived to be futuristic and likely to revolutionize computing and human interaction. Most tech giants are in the race to be forerunners in this ground-breaking technology whose growth prospects are untapped. However, artificial intelligence raises concerns about the moral and ethical issues it raises. Some people are concerned that intelligent machines will ‘colonize and enslave’ humanity. Currently, no intelligent agent that has posed a threat to humanity or shown to possess equal computing power that matches human brain though remarkable progress has been made. AI has been described to be the substantive alternative to human intelligence and intellectual capacity and therefore soon or later intelligent machines will have the matching intelligence to humans if not higher. This is a moral issue that has threatened many tech-phobic people. Some people are concerned with how artificially intelligent machines will interact with humans. They are concerned about the rights of these machines and their fears on colonizing and enslaving humanity cannot be dispelled. This has raised concerns about the impact these agents will have on our economy, i.e., jobs, social interactions, morality, and ethics. As artificial intelligence develops, it is imperative that their goals and objectives are closely aligned with human values, morality, and ethical principles.
Roboticists and pro-artificial intelligence individuals believe that in the foreseeable future robots will be sentient and conscious of their existence. The ability to perceive and have feelings is a disputable predicate, but recent developments have shown that humanoids can actually judge if someone is happy, sad or tired. The inbuilt functionalities which enable these humanoids to perceive our feelings can be developed to make robots have feelings themselves. Ethical issues surrounding sentient beings may require legal recognition and lead to the birth of robots’ rights. If humans perceive robots to possess a conscience, will they be eligible for robots’ rights? That means humans can be punished or jailed for violating robot rights. For example, is a robot deploys a drone that kills people without human intervention. The moral question is whether humans should place another human life at the discretion of a machine to determine who lives or dies whether for the greater good or not.
Additionally, robots will be able to sue a human over violation of their rights. If the robots are the ones violating human rights, they will have to be punished for their mistakes. The judicial system is designed and structured to offer justice, and therefore if the robots are punished or even destroyed, humans can still have a feeling that justice was not served because robots cannot accurately feel the pain of a human CITATION Yos09 \l 1033 (Bar-Cohen and ...