How We Survive

We human beings dominate our planet, not because of our powerful bodies, but because we are able to cooperate in large numbers, even with strangers. What is it that sets us apart in being able to do this? Intelligence you say? True, because it is intelligence which allows us to cooperate in new ways when circumstances change. However, equally important is another capability we have, which is a sense of ethics.

The foundation of cooperation is ethical behavior. When others cross the line and fail to cooperate, we get really upset, for our survival is endangered, and we take careful note. We human beings, whether culturally or instinctively, know what is right and wrong, our survival has and continues to depend on ethics.

It is now becoming easy to imagine machines making decisions and taking actions autonomously. Yet machines do not have the implicit guard-rails of ethical training and instinct - without hesitation they can easily cross the line into actions that cause harm. This is why we may feel uneasy and wonder about autonomous machines and our survival. 

We already have a list of autonomous systems causing harm, sometimes glaringly, and sometimes in unforeseen ways, with systems that work very well, but within a scope that turns out to have been too limited.  

Responsible Machines, rather than intelligent machines, is what we need to carefully design for and create. How do we go about creating responsible machines? What are the steps we can take right now, to mitigate the risk of creating an ethically oblivious system?