It is difficult to define artificial intelligence just as it is difficult to understand what a robot really is in the contemporary world. The technological improvements in the current state of the world innovations have seen very sophisticated machines and designs into play to produce other sophisticated items. The artificial intelligence seeks motivation from the human brain to create a machine that can think and act as a human beings do through a complex process. These machines do not have brains, such as humans do, but they can intellectually act and do anything that a human being does. The most recent innovation involves an invention of robots that can conduct a surgical process in theatre (Kanda & Ishiguro, 2017). This means that human beings will soon be subject to surgical processes by a robot. Besides that, robots and other smart machines can perform several functions that only human beings could do over a long time.
However, there has been an unending debate about the ethics of developing artificial intelligence, such as seen in the present state of affairs. The smart machines also interact with human beings at personal levels even though they do not have the same emotional attachments that human beings do have, but the level of interactions gets closer by the day. The internet of things also reflects the sophistication of human minds and other internal processes that take place to have things done in a particular manner. The debate challenging the development of these machines has been focusing on various departments of manufacturing and development. The religious sector have been the most vocal in this debate because the act of development is seen as a way of challenging the Christian God on what He does and His intelligence. In his debate, the Christians argue that only God has the capacity to create and that He commanded people not to make any object that resembles anything on earth or in Heaven. Apparently, some robots resemble human beings, which are thus seen as breaking the commandment of God.
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Besides the Christian world, the economists also have their fair share of the debate and the effects of the IOT, Smart Machines and robots. The economists see these developments as providing jobs to the few people while at the same time rendering the many people jobless in the various sectors that these people worked. Moreover, the humanity side of the debate argues that the machines affect the manner of behavior in human beings (Barrat, 2013). On the other side of the coin, the IOT, smart machines, and robots have made tremendous contributions in the society by optimizing logistics, composing art and entertainment. In addition, it is responsible for detecting fraud, making transport and communication easier, and conducting research. Despite the positive changes, these developments have brought good to the society. The developments have some ethical issues associated with them as far as their contributions to the society and interactions with human beings are concerned, as this paper will discuss.
The level of unemployment increases with the increased development of technology in the world today. The development involves machines that can perform activities that human beings only can manage, thus taking their place in the society because they can easily work consistently and at high rates of speed. For instance, the robot machines that can conduct surgery take the place of surgeons and rendering the new grandaunts in the field jobless. The hierarchy of labor currently focuses on automation of processes in the manufacturing sector, thus threatening the workforce largely composed of human beings. Ethically, this issue affects the quality of life many people will lead the society and at the same time affect the revenue collection by the by the authorities through taxation and rate of dependency by the various people in the society. The automated machines will complete several projects that human beings did manage.
There is upright inequality in wealth distribution from IOT, robots and smart machines. It is difficult to device channels that will ensure equal distribution of the wealth generated from robots that conduct health related processes, from harvesting and other processes that should directly involve people. Apparently, these machines only benefit the owners and the manufacturers without any other intermediary person as a direct beneficially of the development. Therefore, this aspect supports the first issue discussed above that as many people will be jobless as a result of automation. The gap between the owners and the founders against the normal people in the society keeps widening because the wealth distribution from these developments is unequal and unfair to the people.
Machines, especially the smart machines and robots affect the intellectual capacity of human beings in different ways. The most recent development of a human-like female machine for companion and sexual intercourse with human beings directly affects the emotional capacity of human beings in the sense that human beings can now interact through conversation with the machine and at the same time have sexual fulfillment from the machine. Apparently, this capacity to converse with the machine directly affects the thinking of a person in different ways. To begin with, the individual will begin to think at the same level with the machine because the level of interaction must be in harmony in order to have an effective companionship. Additionally, the manufacturer will want to improve his or her inventions in order to produce a better machine in the next launching, thus thinking beyond his capacity to develop the machine as per his illusions.
Besides that, the religious sector beliefs that the inventions undermines the capacity of God because human beings will think to have the same capacity with Him after developing a machine with almost the same capacity as the ones with the robot. The sex robot in this case has the capacity to make love to the male counterpart and have a constructive conversation to the satisfaction of the owner. Apparently, according to the Christian fraternity, these capabilities, only God could provide for human beings from the time of creation since it was His intention for humanity. Smart machines and automated machines interact with human beings in different ways. For instance, the contemporary communication sector is automated for the callers to leave a message when they do not find the intended recipient on the other side of the phone. The automated machine informs the caller that the intended recipient is not available and that he or she should leave a message for the recipient to receive once available. Therefore, the intended recipient must first interact with the machine and instruct it to inform his or her callers about his or her whereabouts and ask them to leave a message. Therefore, it is apparent that the level of interaction changes the way of thinking for many different people in the society thanks to the contributions of the IOT and smart machines as well as robots.
Another ethical issue involved with robots and smart machines is the artificial stupidity. Arguably, intelligence is a result of learning and avoiding mistakes after knowing things. Unfortunately, machines do not have the privilege of learning something so to act differently when prompted to act. Only human beings have the capacity to learn in this case, and thus when addressing intelligence and stupidity, it is, therefore, important to understand that the creators of the projects failed to address the artificial stupidity of the machines. This stupidity entails the lack of knowledge of some things and not understanding the reason for its lack of knowledge. In this case, the machines portray their artificial stupidity that was imported them by the creators because of their limited thinking. Essentially, the robots created for sexual purposes do not enjoy the intercourse at the same level with the human beings because they are not emotional.
A different perspective of ethics arises upon contemplating the machines with moral status in the future society. The future of AI will involve machines with the moral aspects of the society because the machines will then because it will directly influence the conception process and the product, unlike the normal beings that naturally produce without any artificial interceptions. Take for example the test tube conception of human beings where the woman can go and ask for the Y chromosomes of a selected male person in order to conceive a boy child. This is unethical because biological processes have not been allowed their rightful duty to perform their normal roles as always before and after conception takes place (Gray, et al., 2016). Therefore, this approach to morality will ensure the morality of these machines dictates the gender and other issues of the society. Moreover, some human beings end up treating these machines not just as means but as ends of their lives. They treat the machines better than they do treat other fellow huma bengs owing to the amount of investment an attachment invested by the owners. Therefore, the machines, somehow, have come not just to improve the quality of life the people live across the world, but also to take place once occupied by human beings.
This is unlike the treatment of human beings to rocks and non-living things, which will not have any moral aspects to the human being. However, the man wishes to treat the non-living things will not matter because the object does not have any emotional attachment of physical feeling. Therefore, the smart machines, robots and the IOT receive better treatment from the owners because it entails the amount of investment input by the owner. Moreover, the development of these machines and IOT including the smart machines goes against the principle of Ontogeny and Non-Discrimination because the machines have the same experience as imparted by the manufacturer, the same functionality as well as same consciousness without any further discrimination. The only difference is the manufacturer that brought them to existence, but they have the same moral values (Boddington, 2017). This idea has been highly involved in influencing the perceptions of human beings because people in the contemporary society claim that the origin is not as important as the end could be as far as the birth and up-bringing capacity of a human being is concerned.
Overall, the debate of ethics IOT, robots and smart machines seems far from over because of the contributions these objects make in the society. The manufacture, use and revenue generation from these objects does not distribute equally, thus hurting the economy of a given institution. Further, the development of the technologies renders many people jobless by occupying the different positions initially occupied by the people. Moreover, the ethical perspectives of treatment beats logic that people can treat machines and computers in a tender manner as compared to the same treatment they could give to other human beings in the society.
References
Barrat, J. (2013). Our final invention: Artificial intelligence and the end of the human era , Thomas Dunne Books.
Boddington, P. (2017). Towards a code of ethics for artificial intelligence , Springer.
Gray, J. O., Caldwell, D. G., & Institution of Electrical Engineers. (2016). Advanced robotics & intelligent machines . London: Institution of Electrical Engineers.
Kanda, T. & Ishiguro, H. (2017). Human-robot interaction in social robotics, CRC Press.
