Why is the concept of AI Ethics suddenly on the top of the agenda?
AI ethics in the embedded system industry
In his keynote, Hessami first clarifies some terms before addressing the question above: The concept of ethics itself is a branch of knowledge that underpins our decisions and is what we want to embed in our solutions, technology products and services. Morality is the differentiation between right and wrong that we most likely reach through ethical concepts.
And then we arrive at the concept of embedded systems and autonomous systems. These are systems that can make decisions without human oversight or intervention. The main characteristic of an autonomous system is that it can decide on a course of action without prior human authorization and validation. Furthermore, it can take action in the real world based on that decision, and then adapt further depending on the reactions from the real world.
This is very different from the automation we are familiar with. We have never had machines deciding our fate and our rights. For this reason, the concept of ethics has suddenly arrived on the agenda.
It’s not just popular because philosophy has become as important as computer science. It’s because suddenly we have machines that are acting almost in the capacity of other human beings.
