Gao Yilan, Zhang Rui, Li Xuelong, Ethical Computing of Artificial Intelligence, Science in China: Information Science, 2023, doi: 10.0000/SSI-2023-0076．

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Breakthroughs in technologies such as multimodal cognitive computing and generative large models have driven artificial intelligence into our lives, accelerating the application of intelligent systems in various fields such as medical care and education. Intelligent systems are increasingly involved in human life and decision-making, from intelligent chess players to intelligent surgical robots. In production and life where more and more intelligent robots are accompanied, have you ever worried about intelligent robots rebelling against humans? How reliable is your intelligent robot? Although under the current technical conditions, intelligent robots have not yet reached the level of free will and strong artificial intelligence as imagined, putting aside these futuristic ideas, the application scenarios of artificial intelligence gradually involve security fields such as human health and privacy. How to make artificial intelligence adhere to the ethical order and better serve mankind? The deepening of technological socialization has triggered discussions on a series of technological ethical issues.

Video introduction

While artificial intelligence has brought about technological changes and improved production efficiency, it has also caused more practical ethical concerns, and its impact on society cannot be underestimated. How to build reliable intelligent systems and how to deal with the ethical issues brought about by technology are must-answer questions for the future development of technology. As artificial intelligence technology continues to develop and become socialized, key ethical governance issues are emerging. How to make various ethical demands practical and practical is crucial. In recent years, both academia and industry have begun to pay attention to and discuss AI ethical governance issues, and have also made preliminary progress in the study of ethical standards. However, due to the abstract nature of AI ethics, how to quantitatively measure the ethics of intelligent systems is still an unknown problem. The team of Professor Li Xuelong of Northwestern Polytechnical University published the article "Ethical Computation of Artificial Intelligence" in "Chinese Science: Information Science". The 34-page full text explores possible measurement methods of ethics, attempts to establish a quantitative calculation framework for AI ethics, and points out that ethical calculation will be a key cross-cutting field to promote the practice of technological ethics and an important basic tool for constructing ethical norms, aiming to trigger more thinking about the ethics of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence ethical computing is an interdisciplinary field of artificial intelligence and ethics. It uses quantitative description, measurement or simulation technology to mathematically symbolize or algorithmize ethical principles, and on this basis, constrains the ethical performance of intelligent algorithms. Can ethical computing be the key to breaking through the dilemma of ethical governance of artificial intelligence?

Ethical issues have been discussed for a long time. In Asimov's science fiction novels, the famous Three Laws of Robotics were proposed to limit the behavior of artificial intelligence. However, with the deepening of technological socialization, our ethical concerns are obviously no longer in the fictional scenes of science fiction novels or movies. Can surgical robots be trusted? Are the decisions of the assisted decision-making system fair? Do the results of generative models infringe copyright? These technical ethics issues are closely related to you and me at the moment, and there is an urgent need for more specific and operational ethical governance solutions for artificial intelligence technology.

Comparison of decision-making factors in AI application scenarios

As an important issue in the development of artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence ethical governance has attracted widespread attention from all walks of life. UNESCO released the "Recommendation on Ethical Issues in Artificial Intelligence" in December 2021 to regulate the development of artificial intelligence technology. At the same time, various countries are also actively participating in discussions on artificial intelligence governance. Research shows that countries around the world have formed a preliminary consensus on technological transparency, fairness, non-harm, privacy and other aspects.

Key AI ethical principles

On October 8, 2023, ten departments including the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "Technology Ethics Review Measures (Trial)", which focuses on the technology ethics review issues arising from the practical application of technologies related to the intelligent field. This is a key step for my country to take the practice of science and technology ethics governance, and provides direction guidance for the healthy development of the field of artificial intelligence.

However, we need to be clearly aware that while artificial intelligence ethical governance is progressing, it still faces many problems. How to ensure that intelligent systems make decisions in a benevolent and fair manner? How to measure the ethical performance of a system or evaluate the results of its decisions? How to establish unified and clear ethical norms? The underlying cause of various problems lies in the abstract nature of ethics itself. Focusing on qualitative analysis of ethics, the lack of quantitative calculations makes it difficult to put relevant norms into practice, which has also become the Achilles heel of artificial intelligence ethical governance.

As intelligence penetrates into various fields of human society, ethical governance has become a must-answer for the healthy and sustainable development of artificial intelligence. Research on the theory and technology of ethical computing can help solve the difficult problem of quantitative analysis of abstract ethics. This may become a lock that restricts artificial intelligence from following human ethics, and is also a key to opening up the implementation of AI applications.

Artificial intelligence is a general trend, and relevant legislation and regulations will gradually emerge. Who will formulate these rules? Are they researchers who are familiar with the field, or a group of people who do not know enough about the specific technology? This question is difficult to answer, but at least numerical measures of AI ethics can provide a reference index system for rule specification.

The core of ethical computing is to concretize abstract ethics through quantitative calculations, emphasizing the integration of ethical principles into the practice of computing technology, such as fairness, transparency, privacy protection, and trustworthiness. This will not only contribute to the controllable development of artificial intelligence, encourage researchers to have a deeper understanding of technical ethics and more proactively consider ethical issues when building algorithmic systems, but will also provide vital technical reference indicators for formulating ethical governance principles, laws and regulations, etc.

However, ethical computing also faces many challenges. In open on-site security scenarios such as autonomous search and rescue and unmanned inspections, intelligent systems need the ability to dynamically perceive and adapt to environmental changes to reduce potential ethical risks. At the same time, ethical decision-making usually involves factors such as emotion and cognition. Technologies such as multi-modal cognitive computing and causal reasoning are needed to deal with the complexity of ethical reasoning. It also requires more understanding of how humans make ethical decisions. These challenges require deep collaboration across disciplines to ensure that ethical computing technologies can effectively address evolving ethical issues.

In short, artificial intelligence ethical computing will serve as an important tool to promote the development of ethical governance. By promoting the iterative development of ethical governance theory and practice, ethical computing will more safely release the potential of artificial intelligence, and is expected to play a role in assisting in the formulation of regulations, ensuring that artificial intelligence develops in a manner consistent with ethical and moral principles, and ultimately benefits human society.

Brief introduction of the corresponding author

Li Xuelong is deputy director of the Academic Committee of Northwestern Polytechnical University and professor of the Institute of Optoelectronics and Intelligence (iOPEN). His main research directions are local security, image processing, and imaging.

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Reference reading:

Li Xuelong, Multi-modal cognitive computing (Multi-modal), Chinese Science: Information Science, 53 (1), 1-32, 2023, doi: 10.1360/SSI-2022-0226.

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Li Xuelong, On-site security ( ), Communications of the China Computer Federation, 18 (11), 44-52, 2022.

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