EAGER: A General Ethical Dilemma Analyzer

EAGER：通用道德困境分析器

• 批准号: 1151305
• 负责人: Michael Anderson
• 金额: $ 6.61万
• 依托单位: University of Hartford
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2015-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1151305&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; General; Ethical; Dilemma; Analyzer

Systems that are capable of producing change in the environment require particular attention to the ethical ramifications of their behavior. The determination and mitigation of the ethical concerns of such systems has to date been charged to their designers and has largely been accomplished by simply preventing systems from engaging in ethically unacceptable behavior in a predetermined, ad hoc manner, which can unnecessarily constrain the set of possible behaviors. Although this may have been considered "best practice" in the past, the coupling of computational intelligence to such systems is likely to provide better options. This is especially true of autonomous systems, which not only produce change in the environment but are capable of monitoring this environment to determine the effect of their actions as well as what the next action should be. Ethical questions concerning the behavior of such complex and dynamic systems are likely to exceed the grasp of their designers and elude simple static solutions. Autonomous systems will therefore need tools and methodologies to help codify ethical principles pertinent to their behavior, principles which form the basis for the autonomous selection and justification of ethically preferable actions.In this research, the PI and his team will develop and implement a general methodology for the discovery of ethical principles, abstracted from their previous work, which incrementally constructs representations that characterize ethical dilemmas and discovers decision principles necessary to resolve them. They will use this system to codify representation schemes and principles of ethical decision-making in domains that are of particular significance to autonomous systems in their interaction with human beings. And they will evaluate the discovered representations and principles through independent consultation. The PI expects project outcomes will provide evidence that ethical principles and decision-making can be computed and function effectively in domains where machines are likely to interact with human beings.Broader Impacts: This research will lay the foundations for providing autonomous systems across multiple domains with the principles required to choose the most ethically correct actions and justify these choices. Thus, the work should alleviate concerns with autonomous systems and bolster society's support for their development in a wide range of domains. An important by-product of the research is that breakthroughs in ethical theory are likely to result as representations and principles for resolving ethical dilemmas are discovered.

能够改变环境的系统需要特别关注其行为的伦理后果。 迄今为止，此类系统的伦理问题的确定和缓解一直由其设计者负责，并且很大程度上是通过简单地防止系统以预先确定的特设方式从事伦理上不可接受的行为来实现的，这可能会不必要地限制可能的行为。 虽然这在过去可能被认为是“最佳做法”，但将计算智能与此类系统结合起来可能会提供更好的选择。 这对于自主系统来说尤其如此，它不仅会改变环境，而且能够监控环境，以确定其行为的效果以及下一步应该采取的行动。 有关这种复杂和动态系统行为的伦理问题可能超出其设计者的理解范围，并逃避简单的静态解决方案。 因此，自治系统将需要工具和方法来帮助编纂与其行为相关的伦理原则，这些原则构成了自主选择和道德上可取的行为的基础。在这项研究中，PI和他的团队将开发和实施一种通用方法来发现伦理原则，从他们以前的工作中提取，它逐步构建表征伦理困境的表征，并发现解决这些困境所需的决策原则。 他们将使用这个系统来编纂代表方案和道德决策的原则，这些领域对自治系统与人类的互动具有特别重要的意义。 他们将通过独立的咨询来评估所发现的陈述和原则。 PI期望项目成果将提供证据，证明在机器可能与人类交互的领域，道德原则和决策可以被计算并有效地发挥作用。更广泛的影响：这项研究将为跨多个领域提供自治系统奠定基础，这些系统具有选择最符合道德的正确行为所需的原则，并证明这些选择是合理的。 因此，这项工作应该减轻对自治系统的担忧，并加强社会对它们在广泛领域发展的支持。 这项研究的一个重要副产品是，随着解决伦理困境的表征和原则的发现，伦理理论可能会出现突破。