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In the face of the aggressive development of AI, the ethical issues of AI have become the focus of the times. This article focuses on emphasizing the different perspectives of "Chinese and Western culture" and "science and humanities".

1. The ethical issues of AI have become the focus of the times

Today's AI has turned some topics that were considered sensational in the past into serious research that cannot be avoided. Not only are traditional scientific theories and technical practices and the relationship between the two being reconstructed, but also challenging integration issues have arisen between the two separate fields of "science" and "humanities". Faced with the aggressive development of AI, frontline scientists have to make expedient answers. The "Asilomar Artificial Intelligence Principles" (AI) led by the "Future of Life Institute" (FLI) ), can be regarded as an emergency ethical program for front-line scientists.

On the other hand, traditional philosophy, anthropology, ethics, etc. cannot quickly enter the front line, and the frenzy inspired by the urgent industrial, economic, financial, and social fields has risen to a national consciousness. Governments of various countries have begun to raise the development of AI and industrial creativity as strategic issues in global competition and put them into action.

The difference between the research and development of AI in Western countries is that Chinese culture attaches great importance to the central position of people and human nature. This allows us to occupy a special cultural position in the relativity between "Chinese and Western culture" and "science and humanities". Can we not miss the opportunity in the interweaving of these two "two cultures"? We would like to raise this issue here. Faced with the ethical relationship between humans and machines that is closely related to human beings’ own interests, we hope to study the ethical issues of AI platforms in a large-scale context.

The development of AI and Robot has had an impact on the status and value of human beings. This concern has been around for a long time. Some time ago, many funds and various research institutions were paying attention to AI ethics issues. Among them, the "Future of Life Research Institute", founded as volunteers by some well-known experts and professors on artificial intelligence issues, published an open letter on January 11, 2015: for and : an Open (Open Letter: Research for Robust and Profitable Artificial Intelligence), proposing that "our AI must do what we want them to do" (our AI must do what we want them to do), which is the slogan of "beneficial artificial intelligence" (AI). The same high level of attention to such issues has previously attracted widespread attention and serious discussions and actions within and outside the industry, such as: IEEE for in and (IEEE Global Initiative on Ethical Considerations of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems), AAAI 2008-09 Panel on Long-Term AI (AAAI 2008-09 Presidential Committee on the Future of Artificial Intelligence), on to and (Artificial Intelligence Cooperation to Benefit People and Society), AI100 (Artificial Intelligence Centennial Research Plan), and of Fund ( Artificial Intelligence Ethics and Governance Foundation), Allen for (Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence), etc.

Earlier, in the 1940s before the emergence of physical robots, there were science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov's famous "Three Laws of Robotics" and various subsequent supplementary principles:

LawⅠ:A Robot may not a human being or, , allow a human being to come to harm.

The First Law: A robot may not harm a human being, or do nothing when it witnesses that a human being is in danger;

LawⅡ: A robot must obey given it by human where such would with the first law.

Second Law: A robot must obey orders given to it by humans, except when the order conflicts with the First Law; Law

Ⅲ: A robot must its own as long as such does not with the first or law.

Third Law: Robots must protect their own survival as much as possible without violating the first and second laws.

These three laws actually regard the obedience of machines to humans as the principle of machine design and manufacturing, and do not consider the issue of super artificial intelligence with "autonomous ability" or even "self-awareness". Now, the "highly autonomous artificial intelligence system" (AI) or known as "strong artificial intelligence" or "general artificial intelligence" (AGI) seems to be knocking on the door. How should humans respond?

In this sense, it can now be said that the most cutting-edge and cutting-edge research conducted by any large company, large enterprise or academic organization engaged in artificial intelligence research and development is actually essentially related to the ethical issues of artificial intelligence.

2. The core idea of ​​“Asilomar Principles of Artificial Intelligence”: AI

At the "Asilomar Conference" (the 2017) held in California, USA, in January 2017, 844 experts in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics jointly signed what is called the "Asilomar Principles of Artificial Intelligence" (AI), calling on people working in the field of artificial intelligence around the world to abide by these principles and jointly protect the interests and security of humankind in the future. The core idea of ​​"Asilomar Artificial Intelligence Principles" is AI, which we interpret as "AI for people and humans."

In the face of these complex and urgent situations, human beings can only respond based on basic ethical beliefs formed in human history and long-term ethical research results. Faced with the urgent ethical issues faced by the rapid development of artificial intelligence, front-line scientists in non-professional ethics gave an expedient answer: "Asilomar Principles of Artificial Intelligence". Based on the traditional professional ethics of scientists, based on human conscience and rational concerns about the future of mankind, they take the ethical issues of researchers and institutions directly involved in artificial intelligence as the main object, and express the ethical concept of AI in 23 items of the "Asilomar Principles of Artificial Intelligence". The programmatic items are as follows:

The first "Research Purpose" determines the principle that the purpose of artificial intelligence research is to create AI and Robot that serve people and are controlled. This principle is the basic ethical guarantee between humans and machines, and this guarantee is first reflected by the ethical consciousness of research and development personnel and adhered to in research and development; therefore, the 16th "Human Control" expresses a deep expectation.

Item 2 "Research Funding" preserves and protects the prerequisite status of human resources, will, and value systems.

Item 10 "Value Attribution" and Item 11 "Human Values" further enhance the attribution of value of machines to humans as the design principles of advanced artificial intelligence. Item 9 "Responsibility" clearly imposes this human-machine ethical relationship as a responsibility on researchers; Item 12 "Personal Privacy" and Item 13 "Freedom and Privacy" reflect human dignity.

Item 6, "Safety," refers to the conditions for machine protection of humans set for research work. Item 7, "Failure Transparency," and Item 8, "Judicial Transparency," are ethical requirements for the current work system and legal aspects of artificial intelligence research and development.

Item 14 "Sharing benefits", Item 15 "Common prosperity", Item 17 "Non-subversion", Item 18 "Artificial Intelligence Arms Race", these are the embodiments of the ethical principles of human society in the field of artificial intelligence research.

The above contents are all based on the ethical relationship between humans and machines based on the understanding of human beings and human nature. "Asilomar Artificial Intelligence Principle"

The last 23 "public interests" even include "super intelligence" (super), but this is still considered as the overall interests of all mankind, that is, artificial intelligence for human values and interests ( AI), this premise of maintaining human ethical status has been stated many times at different levels in the field of artificial intelligence. It is based on the simplicity of human morality and human dignity. However, the nature and ethical status of machines or artificial intelligence, which are different from "nature" and different from human beings during development, are still an uncertain issue.

"The Asilomar Artificial Intelligence Principle" is the awakening of the ancient human ethical spirit in the drastic changes in the world, and is an effort to defend human status and dignity in the drastic changes in the world. The "Asilomar Artificial Intelligence Principles" are actually a concentrated expression of long-term observations and thinking about the immeasurable impact of the development of AI and Robot on human beings. In a more profound sense, it can be seen as a serious reflection on the nature, status and value of human beings by the intellectual community represented by scientists and human conscience.

3. Basic theoretical issues in ethics on AI platforms

The most fundamental issue in the ethics of artificial intelligence is the ethical relationship between humans and machines, and this ethical relationship between humans and machines depends on the understanding of the meaning, value and status of "human beings". This is one of the oldest and most profound philosophical issues. In fact, this is why ethical issues have become the most fundamental issues in Eastern and Western philosophical thinking. Philosophical disciplines and many knowledge disciplines, especially the development of science and technology in modern times, have caused philosophy and ethics to continue to differentiate and dissipate into numerous subject theories. When modern people have almost forgotten these ancient wisdoms, the huge expectations, confusion and even fear faced by artificial intelligence force us to push the ethical issues of artificial intelligence to the most important position.

In the most cutting-edge field of artificial intelligence research, the most puzzling question is: Is there any “artificial intelligence” that is higher than human intelligence, so-called “general artificial intelligence”, “strong artificial intelligence”, “advanced artificial intelligence” or “super artificial intelligence”, or even a new “superman” (Nietzsche), “an animal that becomes a god” (Yuval Harari) that merges human and super intelligence...? Item 19 "Capability Vigilance" of the "Asilomar Principles of Artificial Intelligence" acknowledges, but believes that this is an uncertain issue. Attributing this issue to "uncertainty" is just a clever evasion. That is to say, the essence of this issue is: In the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence, is there such an ethical relationship between humans and machines based on basic human ethical beliefs? Therefore, everything seems to return to the oldest philosophical and ethical question, what are our basic beliefs and knowledge in ethics?

So far, the entity construction of artificial intelligence is mainly based on physical laws. There is no question of whether physical entities obey ethical principles. However, how is artificial intelligence based on physical entities essentially different from human intelligence based on living entities? This has always been the most difficult question in human knowledge theory. People have been waiting for an answer. But today, the ethical issues of artificial intelligence have forced scientists to make an expedient answer. In response to the basic ethical issues in the research and development of artificial intelligence as a scientific and technological research activity, the "Asilomar Artificial Intelligence Principle" is only an emergency solution. Specialized theories such as philosophy, ethics, and anthropology must directly study the general nature of artificial intelligence, the ethical relationship between humans and machines, and the intelligence, emotion, and consciousness of humans and other very profound issues, and elevate the technical relationship between humans and machines to the theoretical level of ethics.

This is a serious challenge to philosophy and ethics. In a sense, this is the real battlefield for the challenges to human status and the future brought about by the rapid development of artificial intelligence.

The first philosophers in human history were also scientists. The ancient Greeks mixed science, philosophy, religion, and ethical issues together to discuss them. After the Hellenistic era, global religions emerged. Religion has the essence of ethics. Historically, ethical issues in social reality were mainly borne by religion. However, religion does not answer people’s ethical questions, but only transfers the issue of the ultimate nature of people to God. Religion has the ultimate goal of transitioning from secular humans to divine personalities. Therefore, religion ultimately cannot replace ethics with the secular world as its purpose.

The accumulation and progress of human knowledge and the development of science and technology have enabled modern people to enjoy unprecedented material "happiness", but knowledge and technology themselves have become a matter of both objective and subjective significance. Popper once used the concept of "World 3" to describe this particular object, but the "World 3" theory did not receive strong support and continued to develop in depth. The difficulty is that the "World 3" theory is only a conceptual system and is not within the framework of traditional philosophy. Popper also did not provide a "main, Therefore, the relationship between people and knowledge, tools, and technology has not been studied in depth and systematically.

Today, the development of artificial intelligence has covered and deeply penetrated into everything in human society, and has directly touched the intelligence, emotion, and consciousness that humans have always considered to be exclusive. The relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence has become a challenge to human value and meaning. The most cutting-edge research on artificial intelligence has become the theoretical frontier of ethics. Such problems are not faced and dealt with by individuals, collectives, institutions, enterprises, or even individual countries. In a joint interview with "Wired" magazine, Obama pointed out that the role of public funds in AI development is indispensable.

Today's researchers, groups, institutions, and enterprises have continuously adjusted, combined, and reorganized different R&D platforms, and even when national-level R&D platforms emerged, the ethical theory and practice of artificial intelligence has actually become the most important public research topic on the AI ​​R&D platform. Recognizing that constructing the ethical research of artificial intelligence as the cutting-edge theory of the platform is one of the most basic and basic tasks of platform construction.

4. Cutting-edge ethical issues

Laozi's "Tao Te Ching" and Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" ( ) represents human beings’ profound thoughts on their own state of existence and social existence. In this simple human consciousness, people are always aware of the unconscious as the only self-aware person in the world. Although "anthropocentrism" is especially the narrow "strong anthropocentrism" "ism" has been widely discussed or criticized, but the simple concepts of "man is the measure of all things" (Protagoras) and "artificial legislation of nature" (Kant) based on the value and status of human beings have always been people and human dignity, but this ancient belief has faced a crisis today.

If we say that empirical scientific research studies "what is" and "how is" the world, then ethics studies "how society is" and "how people should be". These two subjects have always been the most representative subjects in the two separate fields of "science" and "humanities" (the so-called "two cultures"). However, the nature of computers, artificial intelligence, and robots that emerged and developed rapidly in the field of scientific research has changed. It has inevitably become an erosion of the core concepts of human ethics. It seems that machines "possess" human intelligence, or machines "possess" human nature, is not a human fantasy. It would not be too much to say that the dignity and status of "human beings" have been shaken by the development of human society itself. It is in this ethical sense that the ethical issues of AI and Robot have become the focus of everyone's attention today.

The core concept of ethics is human social behavior, and ethical behavior is a practical moral philosophy. The ethical concerns of AI and Robot actually have a profound level that transcends the nature of human ethics:

(1) How do people (researchers and developers) implement traditional human moral and ethical beliefs in the AI ​​and Robots they research, manufacture, and develop, so that they obey or even possess human ethical principles;

(2) Do people have the transcendent ability to do this?

(3) Do AI and Robots have any or what kind of ethical norms based on the physical laws that govern them? What's more, for example, can the so-called "science fiction mode" super-artificial intelligence (Super-ASI) ask such ethical questions?

In these complex and even unimaginable situations, we have to further ask: Are there any moral, immoral or non-moral issues for machines? Is this a human problem, a problem of AI and Robot, or a problem common to "us"? If we think about it in this way, maybe one day machines may imitate humans or even have their own self-nature that is different from humans, and even have their own thinkers and philosophers. Are they human-like humans or, conversely, are we just a subcategory of humans?

Before we transcend ourselves as the subject of this "human kind" or even "like life", we cannot and cannot substantively conceive these issues. The most urgent thing now is, do we have the ability to give AI and Robot a moral mind? Just as God was unable to make humans free from sin when they were created, can we have this ability that seems to surpass God's ability?

We can only explore on the basis of the ideas of human ethics that we already have. In this sense, we only have human ethics, and all our concerns, thoughts and actions are human ethics. In this sense, AI is not the morality and ethics of machines, but only the ethical principles of humans in the research and development of AI and Robot. Whether humans can impart human ethical principles to machines is an uncertain question. What we can do today is to stick to our ethical bottom line as humans. Therefore, the "Asilomar Principles of Artificial Intelligence" are the moral call of humans and the sense of urgency of human nature. In this sense, the "Asilomar Principles of Artificial Intelligence" are the embodiment of human dignity.

5. Research on Artificial Intelligence Ethics from a Global Perspective

The "Asilomar Artificial Intelligence Principles" take the ethical issues of participating researchers and institutions as the main project, and avoid the ethical issue of the relationship between humans and machines as an issue of uncertainty. On the one hand, they are waiting for the continuous exposure and gradual resolution of these essential issues in the development of artificial intelligence. On the other hand, they are looking forward to the modern revival of philosophy and ethics and the integration and development of theories about science, technology and the future of mankind and the world with newer perspectives.

The uncertain future of mankind always has a lingering shadow, from the prediction of the end of the world in Christianity to the Western irrational trend of thought of "God is dead" (Nietzsche) to "man is dead" (Foucault) to today's speculation of the "end of mankind", which seems to be the footsteps of growing shock. Can our culture and civilization be reborn with a new transcendent ethics?

Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am." This is actually a scientific attitude towards the world and oneself based on the skeptical and critical spirit of scientific rationality in modern times, that is, the subjective world of dualism is a subjective attitude towards the objective world including itself rather than a scientific explanation, and this subjective The attitude of "I think" and "I am" is not equivalent to the causal, logical, regular and other relationships between "I think" and "I am". Even if there are countless research results in physics, physiology, psychology and other related aspects, it cannot explain how one's own objectivity becomes the subjectivity of consciousness. Therefore, Western culture cannot be without a transcendent unitary God. Beyond these, apart from thought or consciousness itself, "thoughts" cannot be observed externally. We can only intuit or be aware of "thoughts" and think about "thoughts". Although we do not have similar quantum mechanics about unobservable "quantum states" that is difficult to understand, Chinese philosophy or Chinese thought has always insisted that the transcendence of "thought" on the subject's internal (inner "heart") reflection is the essence of the non-element and stepless (promise) "thought". Only with this essence can we enter the path of understanding human "intelligence". Therefore, even if there is advanced or even transcendent artificial intelligence, it must have the meaning of "existing" in time in the "behavior" of self-transcendence such as "thought". Chinese thought nurtured by Chinese culture itself has this inherent temporal essence.

It is precisely because Chinese traditional culture has the essential nature of human beings and human nature that we can directly treat the ethical issues of artificial intelligence as essential ethical issues on the basis of inheriting traditional Chinese and Western doctrines and theories. Essential ethical issues are the essential issues of human beings, and humans are essential uncertainties. The relativity of uncertainty is certainty. Research on uncertainty issues can be carried out at different levels. Only in the research and integration of various complex relationship models at the same level from certainty to certainty can we hope to make real progress and progress.

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Zhou Jianming, Liu Yu: Philosophy of Intelligence: Ethical Issues of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Web article

Zhou Jianming: Modern Ethics and Confucian Culture - Complementary Chinese and Western Culture - Modern Chapter 1 Online Article