Assessment 4: Ethical Analysis

For looking ethically into the dilemmas that are currently in Information Technology I have chosen “the human impact on the use of Drones” and to answer Turing’s question “Can machines think?”.

Both of these issues will be from the point of view of whether either question has a “What is the right thing to do “exploring the meaning of justice and fairness.

Impact on Humanity through the use of Drones.

What is the right thing to do about the use of Drones? Drones use to be expensive and only used in the province of the military. For this discussion, I will be focusing on the military use of Drones. Utilitarian philosophy primarily tends to be used by governments in creating laws and decisions that promote the production of whatever produces happiness and prevention of pain and suffering of the majority. The legislation or decisions produce the outcomes or consequences are for the greatest number of individuals. Utilitarianism looks at the expected results and consequences of an act to determine whether or not the action is morally permissible. (Tavani, 2013) So how does this apply to Drones? Act Utilitarianism states that

An Act, X, is morally permissible if the consequences produced by the doing X result in the greatest good for the greatest number of persons affected by Act X.

Translated to the military use of drones: That the use of Drones to deliver a payload of bombs is morally permissible if the consequences produced by dropping bombs via drones, result in the greatest good for the greatest number of persons affected by the use of Drones to deliver a payload of bombs.

The reality is not necessarily the act of using of drones that is in question; it is the question about military action; whether the action is a just cause? According to Bradley J. Strawser, starting with this question is important. (Shane, 2012) For the war on terror that is happening in the middle east at the moment the answer would be a “yes” as it is about ridding the world of terrorists and there is always some collateral damage in regards to civilian populations.

Is it any worst that what was done in World War II when the carpet bombing by the Germans on the British or vice-versa?

The argument used by Strawser if that as they are used to “go after terrorist as ethically

Citation: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator

permissible but also might be ethically obligatory, because of their advantages in identifying targets and striking with precision … all the evidence we have so far suggests that drones do better at both identifying the terrorist and avoiding collateral damage than anything else we have” (Shane, 2012). In light of what occurred in World War II and in other methods to deter terrorists, this limitation of collateral damage would seem to be its main justification.

In the words of Mr Spock – “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few” (Meyer, 1982). This is quoted as being logic based although it can also seem to be utilitarian based, and seems to be the most applicable quote for the case in the use of drones in military actions

The fact that Drone Operators plan strikes by viewing targets hours or days ahead provides for timing being used more accurately when innocents are not nearby. Although there have been incidents where this has not been the case, this is more about the competence of the operator rather than the use of drones per se, whether from faulty intelligence, or from a recklessness that is sometimes seen on the battlefield, even though the operators are remote.

This brings us to the point of whether the use of Drones in warfare is actually lowering the threshold for lethal violence. This argument has also been used in the video gaming arena where violent games based on battlefield scenarios or first person shooters. Does the fact that a military Drone operator is a distance away from the battlefield endanger the operator’s morality or those who order the strikes in the first place? Daniel R. Brunstetter, political scientist at the University of California fears that drones are becoming “a default strategy to be used almost anywhere” (Shane, 2012). This brings the use in conflict with the ideal of a just war.

Turing’s Infamous Question

To answer this we will need to look at a few questions about the ethics of machines thinking and whether this has an impact on the answer to the question “Can Machines think?”

Firstly, Turing’s intent in asking the Question “Can Machines Think? The idea behind “The Imitation Game” as proposed by Turing was to have a third party (the judge or interrogator) determine which of the two proponents was a human and the other a machine. The game itself was not to prove intelligence rather that a computer could imitate a human. Even Turing considered that the question “Can Machines Think?” to be a bad question and replaced it with a description of “The Imitation Game”. Turing’s proposal was that any computing machine that regularly fooled a discerning judge in the game would be intelligent beyond a reasonable doubt, even though humans, even different genders, and computers may think differently.

Although there has been major advancements in the AI field, there is still a lot to do. Deep Blue was an expert in Chess just as the Bombe machine was an expert in Enigma code cracking. Watson has come close with its appearance on Jeopardy, although it did not pass the Turing Test, as its programming was specific to playing a game of Jeopardy.(Ferrucci, et al., 2010) (Ferrucci D. A., 2012). This comes down to there are many questions that a human may not be able to answer and vice-versa; or capabilities of either humans or machines for any given question.There are some in the field who believe that Watson was acting in a similar manner to the person in John Serle’s classic ” Chinese Room. Did Watson truly “understood” the questions or just used its programming to answer them.

So far computers have not demonstrated the ability to pass the Turing test although there are some that come close. The computers that have come close have prompted philosophers to ask more about what it is to be human.

This brings us to the research from Wendell Wallah and Colin Allen in regards to Moral Machines. We already have some AI entities or bots that assist us with organisation of work schedules for example; and we interact with them on a daily basis (SIRI on Apple’s iPhone / iPad or Google’s equivalent “Ask Google”). These AI entities do not achieve full consciousness and that could be the crux of passing Turing’s test – being fully conscious and choosing to imitate another gender. These AIs do not have any moral foundation built into them. They are primarily deep Question Answer machines.

Autonomous Machines that can think for themselves, choose the best way to navigate a traffic jam in the case of the autonomous car, in some ways require us to trust in them or more explicitly their programming. As humans we may not be willing to do that, as we will need to create some emotional attachment to them, to build the trust as described by Coecklebergh in his article Moral Appearances: Emotions Robots, and Human Morality. Although Turing did not take into account the emotional aspect in his “game”, it does lead to how a computer may imitate a human if the morality and emotions are programmed into it.

So is it right and just to have a computer that can think like a human? In my opinion, no not yet. We as humans have not reached the enlightenment that would allow the use of such a machine to exist. We have elements of it now, and only time will tell if this is correct. Even science fiction writers tend to not have their computers, androids etc have more humanistic appearance.

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References

Coecklebergh, M. (2010). Moral Appearances: Emotions Robots, and Human Morality. Ethics and Information Technology 12 no 3: 235-41.

Ferrucci, D. A. (2012). Introduction to “This is Watson”. IBM Journal of Research and Development, 56(3, 4), 1-15.

Ferrucci, D. A., Brown, E., Chu-Carroll, E., Fan, J., Gondek, D., Kalyanpur, A. A., . . . Welty, C. (2010). Building Watson: An overview of the Deep QA Project. AI Mazagine, 31(3), 59-79.

Mendhak. (2010, October 2). Bombe Machine, Bletchley Park. Retrieved September 2016, from Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mendhak/5125496254

Meyer, N. (Director). (1982). The Wrath of Khan [Motion Picture].

Shane, S. (2012, July 14). The Moral Case for Drones. Retrieved September 2016, from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/sunday-review/the-moral-case-for-drones.html?_r=0

Tavani, H. T. (2013). Ethics and Technology: Controversies, Questions and Strategies for Ethical computing. Rivier Universtity: John Wiley and Sons.

Turing, A. M. (1950). Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind(59), 433-460.

 

 

Update #4 – The state of research

So, it has been awhile since I last updated. I have been overwhelmed with commitments and life at the moment. I have chosen my ethical subjects and now I just need to research them, write my answers, post them here as well as update the discussion forum on Interact2.

Being overwhelmed with life at the moment is due to a recurrence of my PTDS symptoms. Hence the image above. I have felt like I have been drowning in all I need to do, yet unable to find a starting point.

My Cyber Law research is coinciding at least with the drone topics. So I will just need to do each bit of the research just like eating and elephant – one bite at a time. That sounds like a plan.

The internet connection has interrupted my attendance to the online lectures live, thankfully they are recorded and I just sit down with a coffee, my iPad and earphones plus my notepad to take notes in the sun – when  it is not raining.

 

 

Update #3 – A2 Submission and beyond…

So the last few weeks have been interesting with reading all the papers and getting A2 out of the way.

been busy evaluating the papers I have selected for my annotated bibliography. Started work on this and will finished this weekend for submission. I have also reflected on my family’s situation with my elderly father, and how this technology is infiltrating his world and his ability to cope with this infiltration. It has become apparent that although it is a good idea to monitor him, it would be not a great idea to have it all automated as the elderly like to control what happens to them. They also like to understand what is happening to them on some level, even in simple terms.

This is an aspect I had not considered when choosing my topic.

About the picture for this blog. One aspect of digital photography is that there are now cameras that use M2M technology to communicate with storage in the cloud. This is one way that the Internet of Things is impacting on our lives. There is even an electronic memory card that allows you to communicate on a non-WIFI aware device. When my father started with photography in the late 1940’s this would have seemed impossible, magic if you will.

Next step is to work on the presentation and final report.

 

Update #2 – Technology and the Elderly

So I spent some time with my elderly Father this week and we were talking about his daily submission of vital signs and his “vital call” button and how this all relates to my research. I explained to him how some of the  technology he is using actually falls under this Machine-to-Machine communication and that in the future this could all be automated and he would not need to do much apart from answer his questions. He then asked “what about the weight figure?” That got me thinking about how there are a plethora of health apps that have wireless enabled scales., This may not be an idea for all elderly people, especially those with a pacemaker or have some other reason they cannot wear a tracker. That also brings up the idea on how would a sensor track blood pressure.

He looked a little confused, I think, and that made me realise that when getting the elderly to use technology at home it will have to be simple and they will need to give informed consent.

I thought about how this works with the security aspects of eHealth and how consent on a daily basis may be a way of authenticating who is sending the data to the eHealth provider. He currently also is required to answer three questions about how he is feeling. This is part of the overall system that the provider uses. I thought that if sensors did everything else, then sent it to the tablet then the person would answer the questions and send off the data, and in doing so would authenticate the data.

For the rest of us when we get to be over 70 years old and want to live at home we will be OK with having a sensor like a smart watch or device that is connected to such things as scales, will not be a big leap for us.

There is also the other side that the elderly like to be in control of their lives and lifestyle for as long as possible. If everything is automated then they will feel like they have no control. This is an intangible constraint that requires looking into.

Update #1 – A Review of eHealth Systems and M2M Communication Security

So my project has finally got a name after much procrastinating. Here is an overview of the last few weeks.

Planning:

Task – Assessment 1

Milestone:  Topic submission, Blog submission, Completion of Quiz

Planned: 22 July 2016

Actual: 21 July 2016

Comments: Spent most of this time thinking about what I could do for a project. Holiday in Bali did not hamper this process too much. Internet connection was good at hotel so able to complete the Online Quiz. Waiting on results.

Task – Assessment 2

Milestone:  Acquire & install Project Management software

Planned: 22 July 2016

Actual: 25 July 2016

Comments: I waited until I got back from vacation as wanted to install the software on my main desktop computer.

Milestone:  Project Proposal Documentation

Planned: 8 Aug 2016

Actual: 8 Aug 2016 – submitting tomorrow after final review.

Comments: Had to whittle down the papers to get a more focused on the topic chosen being Security in eHealth and Machine-to-Machine communications. There are quite a few papers and articles that are over the three year mark yet still relevant as the field has not moved on very much from them. Two main ways to provide eHealth either through a grid computing ideal or through cyber-security system. To my mind these are one and the same. Just researchers looking at them differently. Also was interested in that some of the  issues in eHealth are also cropping up in other domains like smart grids and smart homes.

I tend to think very big picture and trying to narrow down was hard. I have had more experience implementing systems that creating systems so decided on reviewing the current literature and draw conclusions from there.

Now to the next task – the annotated bibliography.

Week 1 – Getting Started

This is the first week of the research project.

I have decided to look at the use of Machine to Machine communication and how that may be secured.

The title is: Application of Security to M2M Communications.

My Statement of Innovation is:

The use of Machine to Machine communication in the Internet of Things from a security point of view.

What will need to be done to ensure that our Fridges are not hacked and our normal grocery order is not changed.

As we become more reliant on machines to help out with our daily lives or to be used in a medical sense, we will need to ensure that the machines are not vulnerable to attack  or to be only store information that is required to be used in their programming and no more.

This research will look at the concept of secure machine to machine communication used by the Internet of things and how that may occur.