The rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has caused many profound social and ethical issues and has attracted high attention from the society. The National Social Science Fund project "Research on Robot Ethics Issues" points out that we must reach a consensus on the ethical governance principles of artificial intelligence technology as much as possible, and strive to seek specific governance tools and governance mechanisms that reflect governance principles from the theoretical and practical levels.

Original text: "Research on Strengthening the Ethical Governance of Artificial Intelligence Technology"

Author | Du Yanyong, Professor of the Institute of History and Science and Culture, Shanghai Jiaotong University

Pictures | Internet

The importance and urgency of ethical governance

In recent years, many international organizations and major AI research and development countries have released various reports and policy documents in an attempt to provide goals, principles and strategies for the governance of artificial intelligence technology.

2016

September

The Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons released the report "Robotology and Artificial Intelligence", which discusses the ethical and legal issues that robots and artificial intelligence may arise, and emphasizes the need for an appropriate governance framework.

2016

October

The US government released the report "Preparation for the Future of Artificial Intelligence", emphasizing the importance and urgency of governing artificial intelligence.

2017

July

my country has issued the "New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan", pointing out that while vigorously developing artificial intelligence, we must attach great importance to the possible security risks and challenges, strengthen forward-looking prevention and constraint guidance, minimize risks, and ensure that artificial intelligence is safe and reliable. , controllable development.

2018

December

The European Commission issued the "Trustable Artificial Intelligence Ethical Guidelines (Draft)", which pointed out the direction for the governance of artificial intelligence technology.

The high attention paid by countries around the world to the governance of artificial intelligence technology, on the one hand, shows the importance and urgency of governing artificial intelligence technology, and on the other hand, it also reflects the weakness and lack of current artificial intelligence technology governance. In general, related research and practice are still in the exploration stage of how to govern it, that is, specific governance approaches and mechanisms. As for the basic approach to technical governance, there are at least two basic means: legal system and ethics.

Since artificial intelligence technology is in a period of rapid development, if mandatory constraints are imposed from the perspective of the legal system too early, it may affect the development and industrialization of technology. Therefore, it may be more important and reasonable to use ethical means to govern from an ethical perspective. Generally speaking, the ethical governance of artificial intelligence technology includes both the rationality of using ethics as a means, and the rationality of solving ethical problems caused by artificial intelligence. Therefore, the ethical governance of artificial intelligence technology includes two levels of goals: "applying ethics and moral governance" and "governing ethical issues caused by artificial intelligence technology".

Basic characteristics of ethical governance

Governance theory is a hot topic that the academic community has paid attention to in recent years. At least governance theories such as node governance, collaborative governance and experimentalist governance can be referenced. The node governance theory was developed based on contemporary network theory. It mainly focuses on how different actors in the social system interact with the network to achieve the goal of governance. Although not all nodes are equal, node governance still emphasizes basic principles such as inclusiveness and democracy. Collaborative governance clearly requires all stakeholders to participate in the governance process, and regard coordination as a basic governance tool to motivate participants to make their own voices. Collaborative governance has the following basic characteristics, such as emphasizing that all participants are problem-oriented, sharing information, and co-negotiation, stakeholders participate in all stages of the decision-making process to fully demonstrate democracy, as well as ensuring the diversity and flexibility of solutions, etc. . Experimental governance emphasizes the repetition of goal setting and adjustment, requires the granting of broad discretion to grassroots departments, emphasizes the importance of peer review, and so on.

Summarizing several more representative governance theories and combining the goals of ethical governance of artificial intelligence technology, we can see that ethical governance of artificial intelligence technology has the following basic characteristics:

First, the diversity of participants. Ethical governance requires all stakeholders to participate in the governance process, emphasizing the interests of users of relevant technology products, rather than the technology developers and managers leading the governance process.

Second, the diversity and flexibility of governance forms. Since the application scope of artificial intelligence technology is very wide, the ethical problems arising from different application fields and different cultural backgrounds are hugely different. Therefore, everything from the goal setting of governance to the governance process, from the selection of governance tools to the evaluation of governance results, etc. It is necessary to adapt to local conditions and analyze the specific situation in detail.

Third, the democracy of the governance process. Ethical governance emphasizes equal consultation and interactive cooperation among all participants, and government management departments mainly provide services and coordinate work.

At present, my country's research on the ethical governance of artificial intelligence technology is still mainly at the stage of theoretical discussion, and technical governance is a very practical task, and theory and practice must be organically combined. We can at least start with the following aspects to carry out specific governance work:

First, an ethics committee composed of scientific and technological workers, humanities scholars, and government managers is established to coordinate and guide the ethical governance of artificial intelligence technology as a whole.

Second, create a joint laboratory with scientists, engineers and ethicists to conduct simulation experiments on the entire process of ethical governance of artificial intelligence technology, and provide practical experience for real ethical governance.

Third, conduct a comprehensive ethical risk assessment of existing artificial intelligence technologies in various fields, thereby providing a realistic basis for setting goals and priorities for the ethical governance of artificial intelligence technologies in different fields.

In fact, some scholars in our country have deeply realized the importance of these work and have made substantial progress in some aspects. We believe that these efforts will greatly promote the research on artificial intelligence ethical governance in my country, and we also hope that more scholars will Pay attention and participate in specific work.

Basic principles of ethical governance

First, the principle of guaranteeing the subjectivity of the person. From the perspective of the relationship between humans and technology, humans are the subject, technology is the object; humans are the end, technology is the means. The purpose of human development of science and technology is to provide mankind with a happier life and enhance human freedom and dignity. In the historical context of the increasing strength of various capabilities of artificial intelligence, human physical and mental labor may be replaced by artificial intelligence in many aspects, further improving its dominant position.

In the process of ethical governance of artificial intelligence, emphasizing the subjective position of human beings means emphasizing the dominance of human beings in the relationship between human beings and intelligent products, and emphasizing human initiative and selectivity. As a whole, the principle of subjectivity requires humans to have a good control over artificial intelligence, which is also a prerequisite for achieving security. The principle of subjectivity requires us not to rely too much on artificial intelligence products. Human intervention is required in certain major decisions. When the results obtained by artificial intelligence are questioned, humans need to analyze and ruling.

Second, the principle of deep public participation. As mentioned earlier, all stakeholders are required to participate in the process of ethical governance of artificial intelligence technology. We hereby emphasize the importance of deep public participation, as the public is clearly at a disadvantage among different levels of stakeholders. A few scientific and technological workers tend to be blindly optimistic, believing that it is too early to talk about ethics for artificial intelligence, so they naturally reject ethical reflection on artificial intelligence technology and exclude dialogue and communication with the public. In the process of ethical governance of artificial intelligence technology, at least two factors demonstrate the importance of deep public participation. On the one hand, the public is the ultimate consumer and user of smart products. The in-depth participation of the entire process of artificial intelligence technology and industry planning, design, research and development and trial will undoubtedly help eliminate public doubts about artificial intelligence. Even fear is conducive to the popularization and promotion of artificial intelligence technology. On the other hand, in the process of ethical governance of artificial intelligence technology, there may also be certain limitations in the professional knowledge of scientific and technological personnel. Studies have shown that lay knowledge and professional knowledge can form a certain degree of complementarity, thereby avoiding excessive emphasis on certain shortcomings that may arise from professional knowledge.

Third, the principle of responsibility. With the development of artificial intelligence technology, the degree of autonomy of artificial intelligence products will indeed become higher and higher. Some scholars believe that since artificial intelligence has a certain degree of independent learning and judgment ability, scientific and technological personnel cannot predict the behavior of artificial intelligence, so they should not be responsible for the behavior of artificial intelligence, which leads to the so-called responsibility gap. However, the autonomy of artificial intelligence technology is currently quite limited, and the aforementioned principle of subjectivity naturally requires limiting the degree of autonomy of artificial intelligence. In addition, although scientific and technological personnel cannot predict all behaviors of artificial intelligence, they can control and limit their range of behavior and ability to act. Moreover, in an intelligent society, scientific and technological personnel and manufacturers should be the biggest beneficiaries of artificial intelligence technology. According to the principle of "profits need to bear corresponding adverse consequences", scientific and technological personnel and manufacturers are undoubtedly the most critical responsibility. main body. We believe that the designers, manufacturers, various relevant organizations and groups, government management departments and users of artificial intelligence all need to bear corresponding responsibilities. Only by clarifying the responsibility allocation mechanism and ensuring that all parties actively and effectively assume their respective responsibilities can artificial intelligence bring us a bright future.

Of course, it is not difficult to put forward the basic principles of ethical governance of several artificial intelligence technologies. The above principles have been mentioned by Chinese scholars more or less on various occasions. For example, in June 2019, the National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional Committee released the "Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Governance Principles - Develop Responsible Artificial Intelligence", highlighting the theme of "Develop Responsible Artificial Intelligence" and emphasizing harmony. Eight principles include friendship, fairness and justice, inclusiveness and sharing, respect for privacy, security and control, sharing of responsibility, open collaboration, and agile governance.

Our key task at the moment is to reach a consensus on the ethical governance principles of artificial intelligence technology as much as possible. On this basis, we strive to seek specific governance tools and governance mechanisms that reflect governance principles from the two levels of theory and practice. Compared with grand narratives such as discussing governance principles, we need more in-depth micro practices. To this end, we need to do more hard and meticulous work.