The Conflict Between Fundamental Moral Positions and the Goal of Living in a Liberal Democratic Society

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I could at least imagine that people have deep-seeded moral convictions that wouldn't qualify in roles as conception as primary goods, and they might object to having those conceptions stripped away from them. I think that's correct, but I also think it's correct that any group of people who are interacting with each other are going to have certain beliefs that are not respected. And so, if we are having a civil society together just to take the political case, then inevitably, some of your beliefs are probably going to come into conflict with other people's beliefs and with the institutions.

It’s hardly news that computers are exerting ever more influence over our lives. And we’re beginning to see the first glimmers of some kind of artificial intelligence: computer programs have become much better than humans at well-defined jobs like playing chess and Go, and are increasingly called upon for messier tasks, like driving cars. Once we leave the highly constrained sphere of artificial games and enter the real world of human actions, our artificial intelligences are going to have to make choices about the best course of action in unclear circumstances: they will have to learn to be ethical. I talk to Derek Leben about what this might mean and what kind of ethics our computers should be taught. It’s a wide-ranging discussion involving computer science, philosophy, economics, and game theory. Support Mindscape on Patreon or Paypal. Derek Leben received his Ph.D. in philosopy from Johns Hopkins University in 2012. He is currently an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. He is the author of Ethics for Robots: How to Design a Moral Algorithm. PhilPapers profile University web page Ethics for Robots “A Rawlsian Algorithm for Autonomous Vehicles” See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.