summary:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the core of the fourth industrial revolution, but it also brings challenges to ethical norms and social governance. Based on the explanation of the current ethical risks of artificial intelligence, the article analyzes some consensus on the ethical norms, governance principles and governance approaches of artificial intelligence, and proposes the theory of "co-construction, co-governance and sharing" as the guiding principle, and gradually builds and forms education. Countermeasures and suggestions for multi-dimensional ethical governance systems including reform, ethical norms, technical support, legal regulations, and international cooperation.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the core technology in the fourth industrial revolution and has received great attention from the world. my country has also formulated a series of development plans and strategies around artificial intelligence technology, which has vigorously promoted the development of my country's artificial intelligence field. However, while artificial intelligence technology brings major development opportunities to economic development and social progress, it also brings profound challenges to ethical norms and social rule of law.

In 2017, the "New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan" issued by the State Council proposed the strategic goal of "three steps", which set off a new wave of artificial intelligence, and clearly proposed to "strengthen the research on legal, ethical and social issues related to artificial intelligence, and establish Legal regulations and ethical frameworks to ensure the healthy development of artificial intelligence”.

In 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized in presided over the collective study held by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on the current situation and trends of the development of artificial intelligence that it is necessary to strengthen the analysis and prevention of potential risks of artificial intelligence development, safeguard the interests of the people and national security, and ensure the safety of artificial intelligence. Reliable and controllable. We must integrate multidisciplinary forces, strengthen research on legal, ethical and social issues related to artificial intelligence, and establish and improve laws, regulations, systems, and ethics to ensure the healthy development of artificial intelligence.

In 2019, the Office of Promoting the Development of New Generation Artificial Intelligence in my country specially established a professional committee for the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Governance, which is fully responsible for the research and promotion of policy systems, laws and regulations and ethical norms in artificial intelligence governance. The "Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China and the Long-Term Goals for 2035" specifically emphasizes the need to "explorate the establishment of regulatory frameworks such as driverless driving, online medical care, financial technology, and intelligent distribution, and improve relevant laws and regulations and ethical review rules”. These all reflect my country's close attention to the ethics of artificial intelligence and its governance and its determination to actively promote it, and also highlight the importance of this issue.

1 Current issues of artificial intelligence ethics

Ethics is the principle and order norm for dealing with the relationship between people and between people and society. In human history, major scientific and technological developments often bring about significant changes in productivity, production relations and superstructure, becoming an important criterion for dividing the times and also bringing profound reflection on social ethics.

After human society entered the information age in the mid-to-late 20th century, information technology ethics gradually attracted widespread attention and research, including personal information leakage, information gap, information cocoon, and insufficient regulation of new power structures.

The rapid transformation and development of information technology has enabled human society to quickly move towards the era of intelligence, which is prominently reflected in the fact that artificial intelligence algorithms with cognitive, prediction and decision-making functions are increasingly widely used in various social scenarios; the synthesis of cutting-edge information technology Application is gradually developing a new hardware and data resource network where everything can be interconnected and computed, which can provide massive multi-source heterogeneous data for analysis and processing by artificial intelligence algorithms; artificial intelligence algorithms can directly control physical devices, and can also be individuals. Decision-making, group decision-making and even national decision-making provide auxiliary support; artificial intelligence can be used in many scenarios such as smart home, smart transportation, smart medical care, smart factories, smart agriculture, smart finance, etc., and may also be used in weapons and military affairs.

However, the process of moving towards the intelligent era is so rapid that we urgently need to deal with more challenging artificial intelligence ethical problems and actively build an order in an intelligent society without the establishment and completion of the traditional information technology ethical order.

Moore, founder of computer ethics, divided ethical agents into 4 categories:

1. Ethical influence agents (ethical influence on society and the environment);

2. Implicit ethical agents (implicit ethical design such as built-in security in specific software and hardware);

3. Show ethical agents (can take reasonable actions based on changes in situations and their understanding of ethical norms);

4. Complete ethical agent (like a human being, having free will and being able to make ethical decisions about various situations).

The current development of artificial intelligence is still in the stage of weak artificial intelligence, but it has also had a certain ethical impact on society and the environment. People are exploring the built-in ethical rules for artificial intelligence, and the implementation of artificial intelligence technology through ethical reasoning also includes an understanding of ethical rules.

In recent years, more and more people have called for giving artificial intelligence machines a certain moral subject, but there is huge controversy over whether machines can become fully ethical agents. Although the current functions or behaviors of artificial intelligence in some scenarios are similar to those of humans, it actually does not have "free will". From the perspective of classic social normative theory, whether it can become a "subject" in the normative sense to assume responsibility does not depend on its function, but is constructed with "free will" as the core. Hegel's Principles of Law Philosophy is based on free will. Therefore, the current stage of analysis and solution path construction of artificial intelligence ethical problems should mainly revolve around the first three types of ethical agents, that is, characterizing artificial intelligence as a tool rather than a subject.

At present, artificial intelligence has inherited the ethical problems of previous information technology, but also has new characteristics due to the opacity, difficulty in interpretability, adaptability, and wide application of some artificial intelligence algorithms such as deep learning. This may be based on basic human rights. Many aspects such as social order and national security bring a series of ethical risks.

For example:

1. The defects and value setting problems of artificial intelligence systems may pose a threat to citizens' right to life and health. In 2018, the fatal accident in Uber’s self-driving car in Arizona, USA was not a sensor failure, but because Uber identified artificial intelligence algorithms as leaves, plastic bags, etc. for passenger comfort when designing the system. Obstacles make decisions to ignore.

2. The bias of artificial intelligence algorithms in target demonstration, algorithm discrimination, and training data may lead to or expand discrimination in society and infringe on citizens' equal rights.

3. Abuse of artificial intelligence may threaten citizens' privacy and personal information rights.

4. Complex artificial intelligence algorithms such as deep learning will lead to algorithm black box problems, making decisions opaque or difficult to explain, thereby affecting citizens' right to know, legitimate procedures and citizens' right to supervise.

5. The abuse and misuse of artificial intelligence technologies such as accurate information push, automated fake news writing, intelligent targeted dissemination, and deep forgery may lead to problems such as information cocoons and the proliferation of false information, as well as may affect people's acquisition and countermeasures of important news. Democratic participation in public issues; accurate push of false news may also increase people's understanding and viewpoints about facts, and may incite public opinion, manipulate commercial markets, and influence politics and national policies. Cambridge Analytica uses the data on it to analyze users' political preferences and push targeted information based on it to affect the US election. This is a typical example.

6. Artificial intelligence algorithms may use algorithm discrimination, or use algorithms to conspire to form horizontal monopoly agreements or shaft spokes agreements to destroy the market competition environment when it is less likely to be noticed and proved.

7. The application of algorithmic decision-making in various fields of society may cause changes in the power structure. Algorithms have a significant impact on people's rights and freedoms due to their technical advantages of processing massive data and their embedding advantages in ubiquitous information systems. For example, credit evaluation in bank credit through algorithms will affect whether citizens can obtain loans, and social hazard evaluation in criminal justice will affect whether pre-trial detention will be conducted, etc. are all prominent manifestations.

8. The abuse of artificial intelligence in work scenarios may affect workers' rights and interests, and the replacement of artificial intelligence for workers may trigger a crisis of large-scale structural unemployment, bringing risks in terms of labor rights or employment opportunities.

9. As artificial intelligence is increasingly widely used in all aspects of social production and life, security risks such as loopholes and design defects in artificial intelligence systems may cause data leakage such as personal information, stopping industrial production lines, and traffic paralysis, threatening financial security, Social security and national security, etc.

10. The abuse of artificial intelligence weapons may exacerbate inequality around the world, threatening human life and world peace...

The governance of ethical risk in artificial intelligence is complex and has not yet formed a complete theoretical framework and governance system.

1. The causes of the ethical risks of artificial intelligence are diverse, including the goal of artificial intelligence algorithms, algorithm and system defects, the crisis of trust in artificial intelligence by affected subjects, lack of regulatory mechanisms and tools, imperfect responsibility mechanisms, and the impacted subjects Weak defense measures, etc.

2. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology and industrial applications, it is difficult to fully characterize and analyze its ethical risks and provide solutions. This requires us to overcome the lag of the traditional normative system, and adopt a "future-oriented" perspective and methodology to actively think and build the normative framework in the design, development, application and use of artificial intelligence, and establish ethical standards, etc. Soft method begins to lead and standardize the research and development and application of artificial intelligence.

Regarding the development of artificial intelligence, we cannot be blindly optimistic nor give up because of the choke. We must deeply realize that it can increase social welfare. Therefore, as human society enters the era of intelligence, it is necessary to guide artificial intelligence to move forward from a macro perspective, conduct ethical reflection on it, identify the ethical risks and causes, and gradually build a scientific and effective governance system , so that it can better play its positive value.

2. Artificial Intelligence Ethical Code, Governance Principles and Approaches

At present, global artificial intelligence governance is still in its early stage of exploration. Starting from the basic consensus on forming the ethical norms of artificial intelligence, we are gradually deepening the implementation of credible assessments, operating guidelines, industry standards, policies and regulations, etc., and accelerating the construction of international artificial intelligence governance. Framework system.

Ethical Code

In recent years, many countries, regions, international and domestic organizations and enterprises have issued artificial intelligence ethical guidelines or research reports. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 40 related artificial intelligence ethical guidelines. In addition to differences caused by factors such as culture, region, and field, it can be seen that the current artificial intelligence ethical standards have formed a certain social consensus.

In recent years, relevant Chinese institutions and industry organizations have also been very active in participating. For example: In January 2018, the China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute released the "White Paper on Standardization of Artificial Intelligence (2018 Edition)", proposing the principles of human interests and responsibilities as the two basic principles of artificial intelligence ethics; in May 2019, "Artificial Arts" Smart Beijing Consensus is released, which proposes 15 principles that all participants should follow for the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind and the development of social development in three aspects: research and development, use and governance of artificial intelligence; in June 2019, the new generation of artificial intelligence in the country The Intelligent Governance Professional Committee issued the "Principles of the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Governance-Developing Responsible Artificial Intelligence", which put forward eight principles for the development of artificial intelligence and outlined the framework and action guide for artificial intelligence governance; in July 2019, Shanghai The Municipal Artificial Intelligence Industry Security Expert Advisory Committee issued the "Shanghai Initiative for the Development of Artificial Intelligence"; in September 2021, the Zhongguancun Forum released the "New Generation Artificial Intelligence Ethical Specifications" formulated by the National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional Committee, etc. Judging from the content released, all standards have reached a high degree of consensus on values ​​such as people-oriented, promoting innovation, ensuring security, protecting privacy, and clarifying responsibilities, but it still needs to be deepened theoretical research and demonstration and further established consensus.

Governance principles

While vigorously promoting the development of artificial intelligence technology and industry, countries and regions such as the United States, Europe, and Japan attach great importance to the safe and healthy development of artificial intelligence, and incorporate ethical governance into their artificial intelligence strategy, reflecting the basic principle of equal emphasis on development and ethical security. in principle.

General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to the rule of law construction in the field of scientific and technological innovation, and emphasizes that "we must actively promote legislation in important areas such as national security, scientific and technological innovation, public health, biosecurity, ecological civilization, risk prevention, and foreign-related rule of law to ensure new business forms and models with good laws and good governance. Healthy development.”

In recent years, my country has formed an overall policy of "inclusive and prudent" in dealing with the regulation and supervision of new technologies and new business formats. This basic policy was officially proposed in 2017. Article 55 of the Regulations on Optimizing the Business Environment implemented from January 1, 2020 specifically stipulates the principle of "inclusiveness and prudence" supervision: "The government and its relevant departments should follow the principle of encouraging innovation and give new technologies, New industries, new business forms, new models, etc. shall be subject to inclusive and prudent supervision, and shall formulate and implement corresponding regulatory rules and standards according to their nature and characteristics, leaving enough development space, and ensuring quality and safety. It shall not be simplified and prohibited or not supervised. . "This provides basic principles and methodology for the current ethical governance of artificial intelligence.

On the one hand, we should pay attention to observation and realize that new technologies and new things often have their positive social significance and objective laws of development and improvement. We should give a certain space to achieve development and improvement, and form it in the necessary aspects of its development. Regulatory methods and measures.

On the other hand, we must adhere to the bottom line, including the bottom line of civil rights protection and security. Important rights and interests and values ​​that have formed a high degree of social consensus and are condensed in the law must be protected in accordance with the law in the process of law enforcement and judicial affairs. This is not only a clear requirement of the law for the developers and users of relevant technology, but also a solemn commitment of the law to protect citizens' rights and interests and promote technology to be good in the intelligent era.

Governance approach

In terms of overall path selection of artificial intelligence governance, there are two main theories: "opposition theory" and "system theory".

The "opposition" mainly focuses on the opposition and conflict between artificial intelligence technology and human rights and welfare, and then establishes corresponding censorship and regulatory systems. From this perspective, some countries and institutions have focused on some ethical principles for artificial intelligence systems themselves and development and applications. For example, the 2020 "Artificial Intelligence Ethics Rome Initiative" proposed seven main principles - transparency, inclusiveness, responsibility, fairness, reliability, security and privacy, and the European Commission proposed artificial in the 2019 "Ethical Guidelines for Trusted Artificial Intelligence" The entire life cycle of intelligent systems should comply with three requirements: legality, ethics and robustness, which all reflect this approach.

"System Theory" emphasizes the coordinated interaction between artificial intelligence technology and humans, other artificial agents, laws, non-smart infrastructure and social norms. The ethics of artificial intelligence involves a social and technological system that must be designed to be careful not to be an isolated technological object, but to consider the kind of social organization it will operate in. What we can adjust is not only the artificial intelligence system, but also other elements that interact with it in the system; based on understanding the operating characteristics of artificial intelligence, we can consider how each element is best allocated and managed within the entire system. At present, there is a certain "system theory" approach in some policies and regulations. For example, one of the eight principles proposed in the "Ethical Design" issued by IEEE (Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is "Qualification" (), which proposes that the system creator should clarify the requirements for the operator, and the operator should also use the operator to express his/her requirements. The principles of knowledge and skills required for safe and effective operation should be followed, which reflects the systematic perspective of making up for the shortcomings of artificial intelligence from the perspective of user requirements, and puts forward new needs for education and training in the intelligent era.

The "Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Governance Principles - Developing Responsible Artificial Intelligence" released by the National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Professional Committee in 2019 not only emphasizes what ethical principles the artificial intelligence system itself should comply with, but also from a more systematic The "governance principle" was proposed, namely, the eight principles that all parties involved in the development of artificial intelligence should follow; in addition to the principles of harmony and friendship, respect for privacy, security and control, etc., focusing on the openness and application of artificial intelligence, it also specifically emphasized the need for " Improve management methods", "strengthen artificial intelligence education and popular science, improve the adaptability of vulnerable groups, and strive to eliminate the digital divide", "promote the development of artificial intelligence and Important principles such as coordination and interaction in governance reflect the "system theory" thinking and multi-dimensional governance including education reform, ethical norms, technical support, legal regulations, international cooperation, etc., and provide more comprehensive artificial Intelligent governance framework and action guide. Based on the particularity and complexity of artificial intelligence governance, my country should, under the guidance of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s “creating a social governance pattern of co-construction, co-governance and sharing”, systematically think about the governance dimensions of artificial intelligence and build a multi-dimensional co-governance. Comprehensive management system of artificial intelligence.

3 Countermeasures for the ethical governance of artificial intelligence in my country

Artificial intelligence ethical governance is an important part of social governance. Under the guidance of the governance theory of "co-construction, co-governance and sharing", my country should take "inclusiveness and prudence" as the regulatory principle and "system theory" as the governance approach, and gradually build a multi-subject participation, multi-dimensional and comprehensive governance system. .

Educational reform

Education is an important way to intergenerational transmission of human knowledge and cultivate abilities. Through the multiple measures issued by the State Council and the Ministry of Education, as well as the reports released by UNESCO, such as "Artificial Intelligence in Education: Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainable Development" and "Beijing Consensus for Artificial Intelligence and Education", we can see that the domestic and domestic The development and reform of education have begun to pay attention to the indispensable role of the development and application of artificial intelligence technology.

In order to better support the development and governance of artificial intelligence, it should be improved from four aspects:

1. Popularize cutting-edge technical knowledge such as artificial intelligence, improve public awareness, and make the public treat artificial intelligence rationally;

2. Strengthen artificial intelligence ethics education and professional ethics training among scientific and technological workers;

3. Provide workers with a continuous lifelong education system to deal with the unemployment problems caused by artificial intelligence;

4. Study the changes in youth education, break the limitations of knowledge-based education passed down from the industrial era, and respond to the demand for talents in the artificial intelligence era.

Ethical norms

my country's "New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan" mentioned that "carry out research on issues such as artificial intelligence behavioral science and ethics, and establish an ethical framework for multi-level judgment structure of ethics and morality and human-computer collaboration." At the same time, it is also necessary to formulate ethical norms and codes of conduct for artificial intelligence product research and development designers and future users to restrict and guide from the source to the downstream.

Currently there are 5 key tasks to be carried out:

1. Research detailed ethical guidelines for key areas of artificial intelligence to form operational norms and suggestions.

2. Proper guidance at the publicity and education level to further promote the formation of an ethical consensus on artificial intelligence.

3. Promote scientific research institutions and enterprises to recognize and practice the ethical risks of artificial intelligence.

4. Give full play to the role of the national-level ethics committee, promote the promotion of various methods such as formulating national-level artificial intelligence ethics guidelines and promotion plans, regularly assessing ethical risks for new business forms and new applications, and regularly selecting best practices in the artificial intelligence industry. Promotion of advanced ethical risk assessment and control experience.

5. Promote the establishment of ethics committees of artificial intelligence research institutes and enterprises to lead the risk assessment, monitoring and real-time response of artificial intelligence ethics, so that artificial intelligence ethical considerations can be carried out throughout the entire process of artificial intelligence design, research and development and application.

Technical support

Reducing ethical risks through improving technology is an important dimension of ethical governance of artificial intelligence. At present, driven by scientific research, market, law, etc., many scientific research institutions and enterprises have carried out federal learning, privacy computing and other activities to better protect personal privacy technology research and development; at the same time, they have strengthened security, interpretability, Fair artificial intelligence algorithms, as well as technical research on data set anomaly detection, training sample evaluation, etc., have also proposed the model structure of ethical agents in many different fields. Of course, the patent system should also be improved, the patentability of algorithm-related inventions should be clarified, and technological innovation should be further encouraged to support the design of artificial intelligence system that meets ethical requirements.

In addition, the formulation of recommended standards in some key areas cannot be ignored. In the formulation of artificial intelligence standards, the implementation and support of artificial intelligence ethical standards should be strengthened, and the support of privacy protection, security, availability, interpretability, traceability, accountability, evaluation and regulatory support technologies should be focused on privacy protection, security, availability, interpretability, traceability, accountability, evaluation and supervision support technologies. Standard formulation, encourage enterprises to propose and publish their own enterprise standards, and actively participate in the establishment of relevant international standards, promote the inclusion of relevant patent technologies in my country into international standards, help my country improve its voice in the formulation of international artificial intelligence ethics standards and related standards, and Chinese enterprises have laid a better competitive advantage in international competition.

Legal regulations

At the legal regulation level, it is necessary to gradually develop digital human rights, clarify the allocation of responsibilities, establish a regulatory system, and achieve an organic combination of rule of law and technical governance. At the current stage, we should actively promote the effective implementation of the "Personal Information Protection Law" and the "Data Security Law" to carry out legislative work in the field of autonomous driving; and strengthen research on algorithm supervision systems in key areas, distinguish different scenarios, and explore the ethics of artificial intelligence. The necessity and prerequisites for the application of risk assessment, algorithm audit, data set defect detection, algorithm certification and other measures, and prepare theoretical and institutional suggestions for the next step of legislation.

International cooperation

At present, human society is entering the era of intelligence, and the rules and order in the field of artificial intelligence around the world are in the formation period. The EU has conducted a lot of research on the values ​​of artificial intelligence, hoping to transform Europe's human rights tradition into its new advantages in the development of artificial intelligence through legislation and other means. The United States also attaches great importance to artificial intelligence standards. Trump issued the "American Artificial Intelligence Plan" executive order in February 2019, requiring government agencies such as the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to formulate it. Standards guide the development of reliable, robust, trustworthy, secure, concise and collaborative artificial intelligence systems, and call for leading the formulation of international artificial intelligence standards.

my country is at the forefront of the world in the field of artificial intelligence technology, and needs to be more proactive in responding to the challenges brought by the ethical issues of artificial intelligence and assume corresponding ethical responsibilities in the development of artificial intelligence; actively carry out international exchanges and participate in the formulation of relevant international management policies and standards. , grasp the right to speak in the development of science and technology; occupy the commanding heights of development among the most representative and breakthrough scientific and technological forces, and make positive contributions to the realization of global governance of artificial intelligence.