Category: Technology

In philosophy, a classic moral debate is on the conflict between liberty and security. While this covers many issues, the main problem is determining the extent to which liberty should be sacrificed to gain security. There is also the practical question of whether the security gain is effective.

One ongoing debate focuses on tech companies being required to include electronic backdoors in certain software and hardware. A backdoor of this sort would allow government agencies (such as the police, FBI and NSA) to access files and hardware protected by encryption. This is like requiring all dwellings be equipped with a special door that could be secretly opened by the government to allow access.

The main argument in support of mandating backdoors  that governments need such access for criminal investigators, gathering military intelligence and (of course) to “fight terrorism.” The concern is that if there is not a backdoor, criminals and terrorists will be able to secure their data and prevent state agencies from undertaking surveillance or acquiring evidence.

As is so often the case with such arguments, various awful or nightmare scenarios are presented in making the case. For example, the location and shutdown codes for ticking bombs might be on an encrypted iPhone. If the NSA had a key, they could save the day. As another example, it might be claimed that a clever child pornographer could encrypt all his pornography, making it impossible to make the case against him, thus ensuring he will be free to pursue his misdeeds with impunity.

While this argument is not without merit, there are counter arguments. Many of these are grounded in views of individual liberty and privacy, the idea being that an individual has the right to have such security against the state. These arguments are appealing to both liberals (who profess to like privacy rights) and conservatives (who profess to be against the intrusions of big government when they are not in charge).

Another moral argument is grounded in the fact that the United States government has, like all governments, shown that it cannot be trusted. Imagine agents of the state were caught sneaking into the dwellings of all citizens and going through their stuff in clear violation of the law, the Constitution and basic moral rights. Then someone developed a lock that could only be opened by the person with the proper key. If the state then demanded that the lock company include a master key function to allow the state to get in whenever it wanted, the obvious response would be that the state has already shown that it cannot be trusted with such access. If the state had behaved responsibly and in accord with the laws, then it could have been trusted. But, like a guest who abused her access to a house, the state cannot and should not be trusted with a key After all, we already know what they will do.

In the case of states that are even worse in their spying on and oppression of their citizens, the moral concerns are even greater. Such backdoors would allow the North Korean, Chinese and Iranian governments to gain access to devices, while encryption could provide their citizens with some degree of protection.

Probably the strongest moral and practical argument is grounded on the technical vulnerabilities of integrated backdoors. One way that a built-in backdoor creates vulnerability is by its mere existence. To use a somewhat oversimplified analogy, if thieves knew that all safes had a built-in backdoor designed to allow access by the government, they would know what to target.

One counter-argument is that the backdoor would not be that sort of vulnerability—that is, it would not be like a weaker secret door into a safe. Rather, it would be like the government having its own combination that would work on all safes. The vault itself would be as strong as ever; it is just that the agents of the state would be free to enter the safe when they are allowed to legally do so (or when they feel like doing so).

The obvious moral and practical concern here is that the government’s combination (continue with the analogy) could be stolen and used to allow criminals or enemies easy access. The security of all safes would be only as good as the security the government used to protect this combination (or combinations—perhaps one for each manufacturer). As such, the security of every user depends on the state’s ability to secure its means of access to hardware and software.

One obvious problem is that governments, such as the United States, have shown that they are not very good at providing such security. From a moral standpoint, it would seem to be wrong to expect people to trust the state with such access, given the fact that the state has shown that it cannot be depended on in such matters. Imagine you have a friend who is very sloppy about securing his credit card numbers, keys, PINs and such—in fact, you know that his information is routinely stolen. Then imagine that this friend insists that he must have your credit card numbers, PINs and such and that he will “keep them safe.” Given his own track record, you have no reason to trust this friend nor any obligation to put yourself at risk, regardless of how much he claims that he needs the information.

One obvious counter to this analogy is that this irresponsible friend is not a good analogue to the state. The state has compulsive power that the friend lacks, so the state can use its power to force you to hand over this information.

The counter to this is that the mere fact that the state has compulsive force does not mean that it is thus responsible—which is the key concern in regards to both the ethics of the matter and the practical aspect of the matter. That is, the burden of proof would seem to rest on those that claim there is a moral obligation to provide a clearly irresponsible party with such access.

It might then be argued that the state could improve its security and responsibility, and thus merit being trusted with such access. While this does have some appeal, there is the obvious fact that if hackers and governments knew that the keys to the backdoors existed, they would take pains to acquire them and would, almost certainly, succeed. I can even picture the sort of headlines that would appear: “U.S. Government Hacked: Backdoor Codes Now on Sale on the Dark Web” or “Hackers Linked to China Hack Backdoor Keys; All Updated Apple and Android Devices Vulnerable!” As such, the state would not seem to have a moral right to insist on having such backdoors, given that the keys will inevitably be stolen.

At this point, the stock opening argument could be brought up again: the state needs backdoor access to fight crime and terrorism. There are two easy and obvious replies to this sort of argument.

The first is based on an examination of past spying, such as that done under the auspices of the Patriot Act. The evidence seems to show that this spying was completely ineffective in regard to fighting terrorism. There is no reason to think that expanded backdoor access would change this.

The second is a utilitarian argument (which can be cast as a practical or moral argument) in which the likely harm done by having backdoor access must be weighed against the likely advantages of having such access. The consensus among those who are experts in security is that the vulnerability created by backdoors vastly exceeds the alleged gain to protecting people from criminals and terrorists.

Somewhat ironically, what is alleged to be a critical tool for fighting crime (and terrorism) would simply make cybercrime much easier by building vulnerabilities right into software and devices.

In light of the above discussion, baked-in backdoors are morally wrong on many grounds (privacy violations, creation of needless vulnerability, etc.) and lack a practical justification. As such, they should not be required by the state.

An obvious consequence of technological advance is the automation of certain jobs. In the past, these jobs tended to be mechanical and repetitive: the sort of tasks that could be reduced to basic rules. A good example of this is the replacement of automobile assembly line jobs with robots. Not surprisingly, it has been claimed that certain jobs will always require humans because these jobs simply cannot be automated. Also not surprisingly, the number of jobs that “simply cannot be automated” shrinks with each advance in technology.

Whether or not there are jobs that simply cannot be automated depend on the limits of technology. But these limits keep expanding and past predictions can turn out to be wrong.  For example, the early attempts to create software that would grade college level papers were not very good. But as this is being written, my university sees using AI in this role (with due caution and supervision) as a good idea. Cynical professors suspect the goal is to replace faculty with AI.

One day, perhaps, the pinnacle of automation will be reached: a single financial computer that runs an entire virtual economy within itself and is the richest being on the planet. But that is the stuff of science fiction, at least for now.

Whether or not a job can be automated also depends on what is considered acceptable performance in the job. In some cases, a machine might not do the job as well as a human or it might do the job in a different way that is less desirable. However, there could be reasonable grounds for accepting a lesser quality or difference. For example, machine made items usually lack the individuality of human crafted items, but the gain in lowered costs and increased productivity is seen as well worth it by most people. Going back to teaching, AI might be inferior to a good human teacher, but the economy, efficiency and consistency of the AI could make it worth using from an economic standpoint. One could even make the argument that such AI educators would make education more available to people.

There might, however, be cases in which a machine could do certain aspects of the job adequately yet still be rejected because it does not think and feel as a human does. Areas in which this is a matter of concern include those of caregiving and companionship.

As discussed in an earlier essay, advances in robotics and software will make caregiving and companion robots viable soon (and some would argue that this is already the case). While there are the obvious technical concerns regarding job performance (will the robot be able to handle a medical emergency, will the robot be able to comfort a crying child, and so on), there is also the more abstract concern about whether or not such machines need to be able to think and feel like a human or merely be able to perform their tasks.

An argument against having machine caregivers and companions is one I considered in the previous essay, namely a moral argument that people deserve people. For example, an elderly person deserves a real person to care for her and understand her stories. As another example, a child deserves someone who really loves her. There is clearly nothing wrong with wanting caregivers and companions to really feel and care. However, there is the question of whether this is necessary for these jobs.

One way to look at it is to compare the current paid human professionals who perform caregiving and companion tasks. These would include people working in elder care facilities, nannies, escorts, baby-sitters, and so on. Ideally, of course, people would like to think that the person caring for their aged mother or their child really does care for the mother or child. Perhaps people who hire escorts would also like to think that the escort is not entirely in it for the money but has real feelings for them.

On the one hand, it could be argued that caregivers and companions who do really care and feel genuine emotional attachments do a better job and that this connection is something that people deserve. On the other hand, what is expected of paid professionals is that they complete their tasks: making sure that mom gets her meds on time, that junior is in bed on time, and that the “adult tasks” are properly “performed.” Like an actor that can perform a role without feeling the emotions portrayed, a professional could do the job without caring about the people they are serving. That is, a caregiver need not actually care as they just need to perform their tasks.

While it could be argued that a lack of feeling would show in their performance, this need not be the case. A professional merely needs to be committed to doing the job well. That is, one needs to only care about the tasks, regardless of what one feels about the person. A person could also care a great deal about who she is caring for yet be awful at the job.

If machines cannot care, this would not seem to disqualify them from caregiving (or being escorts). As with a human caregiver (or escort), it is the performance of the tasks that matters, not the emotions of the caregiver. This nicely matches the actor analogy: acting awards are given for the outward performance, not the inward emotional states. And, as many have argued since Plato’s Ion, an actor need not feel any of the emotions they are performing, they just need to create a believable appearance that they are feeling.

As such, an inability to care would not be a disqualification for a caregiving (or escort) job whether it is a robot or human. Provided that the human or machine could perform the observable tasks, his, her or its internal life (or lack thereof) is irrelevant.

In his book Naked Sun, Isaac Asimov creates the world of Solaria. What distinguishes this world from other human inhabited planets is that it has a strictly regulated population of 20,000 humans and 10,000 robots for each human. What is perhaps the strangest feature of this world is a reversal of what many consider a basic human need: the humans of Solaria are trained to despise in-person contact with other humans, though interaction with human-like robots is acceptable. Each human lives on a huge estate, though some live “with” a spouse. When the Solarians need to communicate, they make use of a holographic telepresence system. Interestingly, they have even developed terminology to distinguish between communicating in person (called “seeing”) and communication via telepresence (“viewing”). For some Solarians the fear of encountering another human in person is so strong that they would rather commit suicide than endure such contact. 

As this book was first serialized in 1956, long before the advent of social media and personal robots, it can be seen as prophetic. One reason science fiction writers are often seen as prophetic is that a good science fiction writer is skilled at extrapolating even from hypothetical technological and social changes. Another reason is that science fiction writers have churned out thousands of stories and some of these are bound to get something right. Such stories are then selected as examples of prophetic science fiction while stories that got things wrong are conveniently ignored. And, of course, people read science fiction and sometimes try to make it real (for good or for ill). But philosophers do love using science fiction for discussion, hence my use of The Naked Sun.

Everyone knows that smart phones allow unrelenting access to social media. One narrative is that people are, somewhat ironically, becoming increasingly isolated in the actual world as they become increasingly networked in the digital world. The defining image of this is a group of people together physically yet ignoring each other in favor of gazing at their smart phone lords and masters. As a professor, I see students engrossed by their phones. And, of course, I have seen groups of people walking or at a restaurant where no one is talking to anyone else as all eyes are on the smartphones. Since the subject of smart phones has been beaten to a digital death, I will leave this topic in favor of the focus, namely robots. However, the reader should keep in mind the social isolation created by modern social media.

While we have been employing robots for quite some time in construction, exploration and other such tasks, social robots are relatively new. Sure, “robot” toys and things like Teddy Ruxpin have been around for a while, but reasonably sophisticated social robots are relatively new. In this context, a social robot is one whose primary function is to interact with humans in a way that provides companionship. This can range from pet-like bots (like Sony’s famous robot dog) to conversational robots to (of course) sex bots.

Tech enthusiasts and the companies who want to sell social robots are, unsurprisingly, very positive about the future of these robot companions. There are even some good arguments in their favor. Robot pets provide a choice for people with allergies, those who are not responsible enough for living pets, or who live in places that do not permit organic pets (although bans on robotic pets might be a thing in the future).

Robot companions can be advantageous in cases in which a person requires constant attention and monitoring that would be expensive, burdensome or difficult for other humans to supply. Sex bots could reduce the exploitation of human sex workers and perhaps have other benefits as well. I will leave this research to others, though.

Despite the potential positive aspects of social robots, there are also negative aspects. As noted above, concerns are already being raised about the impact of technology on human interaction. It has been claimed that people are emotionally short-changing themselves and those they are physically in favor of staying connected to social media. This seems to be a taste of what Asimov imagined in The Naked Sun: people who view but no longer see one another. Given the importance of human interaction in person, it can be argued that this social change is and will be detrimental to human well-being. Human-human social interactions can be seen as like good nutrition: one is getting what one needs for healthy living. Interacting primarily through social media can be seen as consuming junk food or drugs in that it is addictive but leaves one ultimately empty and  always craving more.

It can be argued that this worry is unfounded and that social media is an adjunct to social interaction in the real world and that social interaction via like Facebook and X can be real and healthy social interactions. One might point to interactions via letters, telegraphs and telephones (voice only) to contend that interaction via technology is neither new nor unhealthy. It might also be pointed out that people used to ignore each other (especially professors) in favor of such things as newspapers.

While this counter has some appeal, social robots do seem to be relevantly different from past technology. While humans have had toys, stuffed animals and even simple mechanisms for company, these are different from social robots. After all, social robots aim to mimic animals or humans. A concern about such robot companions is that they would be to social media what heroin is to marijuana in terms of addiction and destruction.

One reason for this is that social robots would, presumably, be designed to be cooperative, pleasant and compliant, that is, good company. In contrast, humans can often be uncooperative, unpleasant and defiant. This could make robotic companions more appealing than human company. At least robots whose cost is not subsidized by advertising. Imagine a companion who pops in a discussion of life insurance or pitches a soft drink every so often.

Social robots could also be programmed to be optimally appealing to a person and presumably the owner would be able to make changes to the robot. A person could, quite literally, make a friend with the desired qualities and without any undesired qualities. In the case of sex bots, a person could purchase a Mr. or Ms. Right.

Unlike humans, social robots do not have other interests, needs, responsibilities or friends. There is no competition for the attention of a social robot (at least in general, though there might be shared bots) which makes them “better” than human companions in this way.

Social robots, though they might break down or get hacked, will not leave or betray a person. One does not have to worry that one’s personal sex bot will be unfaithful. Just turn it off and lock it down when leaving it alone.  Unlike human companions, robot companions do not impose burdens, they do not expect attention, help or money and they do not judge.

The list of advantages could go on at great length, but robotic companions would seem superior to humans in most ways. Or at least in terms of common complaints about companions.

Naturally, there might be some practical issues with the quality of companionship. Will the robot get one’s jokes, will it “know” what stories you like to hear, will it be able to converse in a pleasing way about topics you? However, these seem mostly technical problems involving software. Presumably all these could eventually be addressed, and satisfactory companions could be created. But there are still concerns.

One obvious concern is the potential psychological harm resulting from spending too much time with companion bots and not enough interacting with humans. As mentioned above, people have already expressed concern about the impact of social media and technology (one is reminded of the dire warnings about television). This, of course, rests on the assumption that the companion bots must be lacking in some important ways relative to humans. Going back to the food analogy, this assumes that robot companions are like junk food and are superficially appealing but lacking in what is needed for health. However, if robot companions could provide all that a human needs, then humans would no longer need other humans.

A second point of concern is one taken from virtue theorists. Thinkers such as Aristotle and Wollstonecraft have argued that a person needs to fulfill certain duties and act in certain ways to develop the proper virtues. While Wollstonecraft wrote about the harmful effects of inherited wealth (that having unearned wealth interferes with the development of virtue) and the harmful effects of sexism (that women are denied the opportunity to fully develop their virtues as humans), her points would seem to apply to relying on robot companions as well. These companions would make the social aspects of life too easy and deny people the challenges that are needed to develop virtues. For example, it is by dealing with the shortcomings of people that we learn such virtues as patience, generosity and self-control. Having social interactions that are too easy would be analogous to going without physical exercise or challenges and one would become emotionally weak. Worse, one would not develop the proper virtues and thus would be lacking in this area.  Even worse, people could easily become spoiled and selfish monsters, accustomed to always having their own way.

Since the virtue theorists argue that being virtuous is what makes people happy, having such “ideal” companions would lead to unhappiness. Because of this, one should carefully consider whether one wants a social robot for a “friend.”

It could be countered that social robots could be programmed to replicate the relevant human qualities needed to develop virtues. The easy counter to this is that one might as well just stick with human companions.

As a final point, if intelligent robots are created that are people in the full sense of the term, then it would be morally fine to be friends with them. After all, a robot friend who will call you on your misdeeds or stupid behavior would be as good as a human friend who would do the same thing for you.

Thanks to improvements in medicine humans are living longer and can be kept alive beyond when they would naturally die. On the plus side, longer life is generally good. On the downside, this longer lifespan and medical intervention mean that people will often need extensive care in their old age that can be a burden on caregivers. Not surprisingly, there has been an effort to solve this problem with companion robots.

While current technology is crude, it has potential and there are advantages to robot caregivers. The most obvious are that robots do not get tired, do not get depressed, do not get angry, and do not have any other responsibilities. As such, they can be 24/7/365 caregivers. This makes them superior to human caregivers who get tired, depressed, get angry and have many other responsibilities.

There are, of course, concerns about using robot caregivers, such as about their safety and effectiveness. In the case of caregiving robots that are intended to provide companionship and not just medical and housekeeping services, there are both practical and moral concerns.

There are at least two practical concerns regarding the companion aspect of such robots. The first is whether a human will accept a robot as a companion. In general, the answer seems to be that most humans will.

The second is whether the AI software will be advanced enough to read a human’s emotions and behavior to generate a proper emotional response. These responses might or might not include conversation. After all, many people find non-talking pets to be good companions. While a talking companion would, presumably, need to eventually be able to pass the Turing Test, they would also need to pass an emotion test. They would need to read and respond correctly to human emotions. Since we humans often fail this test, this allows for a broad margin of error. These practical concerns can be addressed technologically as they are a matter of software and hardware. Building a truly effective companion robot might require making them very much like living things. The comfort of companionship might be improved by such things as smell, warmth and texture. That is, to make the companion reassuring to all the senses.

While the practical problems can be solved with the right technology, there are moral concerns about the use of robot caregiver companions. One is about people handing off their moral duties to care for family members, but this is not specific to robots. After all, a person can hand off their duties to another person, and this would raise a similar issue.

As far as those specific to companion robots, there are moral concerns about the effectiveness of the care. Are robots good enough at their jobs that trusting the lives of humans to them  would be morally responsible? While that question is vitally important, a rather intriguing moral concern is that robot companions are a deceit.

Roughly put, the idea is that while a companion robot can simulate human emotions via cleverly written algorithms to respond to what its “emotion recognition software” detects, these response are not genuine. While a robot companion might say the right things at the right times, it does not feel and does not care. It merely engages in mechanical behavior in accord with its software. As such, a companion robot is a deceit, and such a deceit seems morally wrong.

One obvious response is that even if people know the robot does not really experience emotions, they can still gain value from its “fake” companionship. People often find stuffed animals emotionally reassuring even though they know they are just fabric stuffed with fluff. What matters, it could be argued, is the psychological effect. If someone feels better with a robotic companion around, then that is morally fine. Another obvious analogy is the placebo effect: medicine need not be real to be effective.

It might be objected that there is still an important moral concern here: a robot, however well it fakes being a companion, does not suffice to provide the companionship a person is morally entitled to. Roughly put, people deserve people, even when a robot would behave in ways indistinguishable from a human.

One way to reply to this is to consider what it is about people that people deserve. One reasonable approach is to build on the idea that people have the capacity to feel the emotions they display and that they understand. In philosophical terms, humans have (or are) minds and the robots in question do not. They merely create the illusion of having a mind.

Philosophers (and psychologists) have long dealt with the problem of other minds. The problem is an epistemic one: how does one know if another being has a mind (thoughts, feelings, beliefs and such)? Some thinkers (which is surely the wrong term given their view) claimed that there is no mind, just observable behavior. Very roughly put, being in pain is not a mental state, but a matter of expressed behavior (pain behavior).

The usual “solution” to the problem is to embrace what seems obvious: I think other people have minds by an argument from analogy. I am aware of my own mental states and behavior, and I engage in analogical reasoning to infer that those who act as I do have similar mental states. For example, I know how I react when I am in pain, so when I see similar behavior in others, I infer that they are also in pain.

I cannot, unlike some politicians, feel the pain of others. I can merely make an inference from their observed behavior. Because of this, there is the problem of deception: a person can engage in various forms of deceit. For example, a person can fake being in pain or make a claim about being in love that is untrue. Piercing these deceptions can sometimes be difficult since humans can be skilled deceivers. However, it is still (generally) believed that even a deceitful human is still thinking and feeling, albeit not in the way they want people to believe they are thinking and feeling.

In contrast, a companion robot is not thinking or feeling what it purports to be displayed by its behavior, because it does not think or feel. Or so it is believed. A reason that we think robots do not think or feel is because we can examine the robot and not see any emotions or thought in there. The robot, however complicated, is just a material machine and taken as incapable of thought or feeling.

Long before robots, there were thinkers who claimed that we humans  are purely material beings and that a suitable understanding of our mechanical workings would reveal that emotions and thoughts are mechanical states of the nervous system. As science progressed, the explanations of the mechanisms became more complex, but the basic idea remained. Put in modern terms, the idea is that eventually we will be able to see the “code” that composes our thoughts and emotions and understand the hardware it “runs” on.  

Should this goal be achieved, it would seem that humans and suitably complex robots would be on par as both would engage in complex behavior because of their hardware and software. As such, there would be no grounds for claiming that such a robot is engaged in deceit or that humans are genuine. The difference would merely be that humans are organic machines and robots are not.

It can, and has, been argued that there is more to a human person than the material body, that there is a mind that cannot be instantiated in a mere machine. The challenge is a very old one: proving that there is such a thing as the mind. If this can be established and it can be shown that robots cannot have such a mind, then robot companions would always be a deceit.

However, they might still be a useful deceit.  Going back to the placebo analogy, it might not matter whether the robot really thinks or feels. It might suffice that the person thinks it does, and this will yield all the benefits of having a human companion.

My friend Ron claims that I do not drive. This is not true. I drive.  But I dive as little as possible. Part of it is me being frugal. I don’t want to spend more than I need on gas and maintenance. But most of it is that I hate to drive. Some of this is driving time is mostly wasted time and I would rather be doing something else. Some of it is that I find driving an awful blend of boredom and stress. The stress is because driving creates a risk of harming other people and causing property damage, so I am as hypervigilant driving as I am when target shooting at the range. If I am distracted or act rashly, I could kill someone by accident. Or they could kill me. As such, I am completely in favor of effective driverless cars. That said, it is certainly worth considering the implications of their widespread adoption. The first version of this essay appeared back in 2015 and certain people have been promising that driverless cars are just around the corner. The corner remains far away.

One major selling point of driverless cars is that they are supposed to be significantly safer than human drivers. This is for a variety of reasons, many of which involve the fact that the car will not get sleepy, bored, angry, distracted or drunk. If claimed significant increase in safety pans out, there will be significantly fewer accidents and this will have a variety of effects.

Since insurance rates are (supposed to be) linked to accident rates, one might expect that insurance rates will go down. In any case, insurance companies will presumably be paying out less, potentially making them even more profitable.

Lower accident rates also entail fewer injuries, which will be good for people who would have otherwise been injured in a car crash. It would also be good for those depending on these people, such as employers and family members. Fewer injuries also mean less use of medical resources, ranging from ambulances to emergency rooms. On the plus side, this could result in some decrease in medical costs and insurance rates. Or merely mean more profits for insurance companies, since they would be paying out less often. On the minus side, this would mean less business for hospitals, therapists and other medical personnel, which might have a negative impact on their income. Overall, though, reducing the number of injuries would be a moral good on utilitarian grounds.

A reduction in the number and severity of accidents would also mean fewer traffic fatalities. On the plus side, having fewer deaths seems to be a good thing. On the minus side, funeral homes will see their business postponed and the reduction in deaths could have other impacts on such things as the employment rate (more living people means more competition for jobs). However, I will take the controversial position that fewer deaths are probably good.

While a reduction in the number and severity of accidents would mean less and lower repair bills for vehicle owners, this also entails reduced business for vehicle repair businesses. Roughly put, every dollar saved in repairs (and replacement vehicles) by self-driving cars is a dollar lost by the people whose business it is to fix (and replace) damaged vehicles. Of course, the impact depends on how much a business depends on accidents as vehicles will still need regular maintenance and repairs. People will presumably still spend the money that they would have spent on repairs and replacements on other things, and this would shift the money to other areas of the economy. The significance of this would depend on the amount of savings resulting from the self-driving vehicles.

Another economic impact of self-driving vehicles will be on those who make money driving other people around. If my truck is fully autonomous, rather than take an Uber to the airport, I could have my own truck drop me off and drive home. It can come get me when I return. People who like to drink to the point of impairment will also not need cabs or services like Uber—their own vehicle can be their designated driver. A new sharing economy might arise, one in which your vehicle is out making money while you do not need it. People might also be less inclined to use airlines, trains or the bus. If your car can safely drive you to your destination while you sleep, play video games, read or even exercise, then why go through annoying pat downs, cramped seating, delays or cancellations?

As a final point, if self-driving vehicles operate within the traffic laws automatically, then  revenue from tickets and traffic violations will be reduced significantly. Since vehicles will be loaded with sensors and cameras, they will have considerable data with which to dispute any unjust tickets. Parking revenue (fees and tickets) might also be reduced as it  could be cheaper for a vehicle to just circle around or drive home than to park. This reduction in revenue could have a significant impact on municipalities and they would need to find alternative sources of revenue. Or come up with new violations that self-driving cars cannot counter. Alternatively, the policing of roads might be significantly reduced. After all, if there were far fewer accidents and few violations, then fewer police would be needed on traffic patrol. This would allow officers to engage in other activities or allow a reduction of the size of the force. The downside of force reduction would that the former police officers would be out of a job.

If all vehicles become fully self-driving, there might no longer be a need for traffic lights, painted lane lines or signs in the usual sense. Perhaps cars would be pre-loaded with driving data or there would be “broadcast pods” providing data to them as needed. This could result in savings, although there would be the corresponding loss to those who sell, install and maintain these things.

Based on the past, I am predicting that I will revisit this essay again in another decade years, noting once again that driverless cars are the transportation of the future. And always will be.

While Aristotle was writing centuries before wearables, his view of moral education provides a foundation for the theory behind the benign tyranny of the device. Or, if one prefers, the bearable tyranny of the wearable.

In his Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle addressed the practical problem of how to make people good. He understood merely listening to discourses on morality would not suffice. In an apt analogy, he noted that such people would be like patients who listened to their doctors but did not carry out their instructions: they will get no benefit.

His solution is one that is both endorsed and condemned today: using the compulsive power of the state to make people behave well and thus become habituated. Most are happy to have the state compel people to act as they would like them to act; yet equally unhappy when it comes to the state imposing on them. Aristotle was also aware of the importance of training people from an early age, something later developed by both the Nazis and Madison Avenue.

While there have been attempts in the United States and other Western nations to use the compulsive power of the state to force people to engage in healthy practices, these are often unsuccessful and opposed as draconian violations of the right to be unhealthy. While the idea of a Fitness Force chasing people around to make them exercise seems funny, I would oppose such impositions on both practical and moral grounds. However, most need external coercion to force them to engage in healthy behavior. Those who are well-off can hire a personal trainer or fitness coach. Those who are less well-off can appeal to the tyranny of friends who are already self-tyrannizing. However, there are problems with relying on other people. This is where the tyranny of the device comes in.

While the quantified life via electronics is in its infancy, there is already a multitude of devices available including smart watches, smart rings, smart plates, smart scales, and smart forks. All these devices offer measurements of activities to quantify the self and most of them offer coercion ranging from annoying noises to automatic social media posts (“today my feet did not patter, so now my ass grows fatter”), to the old school electric shock (really).

While the devices vary, Aristotle presented their basic requirements back when lightning was believed by some to come from Zeus. Aristotle noted that a person must do no wrong either with or against their will. In the case of fitness, this would be acting in ways contrary to health.

What is needed, according to Aristotle, is “the guidance of some intelligence or right system that has effective force.” The first part of this is that the device or app must be the “right system.” The device must provide correct guidance in terms of health and well-being. Unfortunately, matters of health are often ruled by fad and ideology.

The second part is the matter of “effective force”, so the device or app must have the power to compel. Aristotle noted that individuals lack such compulsive power, so he favored the power of law. Good law, he claimed, has practical wisdom and compulsive force. However, unless the state is going to get into the business of compelling health, this option is out.

Interesting, Aristotle claims that “although people resent it when their impulses are opposed by human agents, even if they are in the right, the law causes no irritation by enjoining decent behavior.” While this does not seem entirely true, he did seem to be right in that people find the law less annoying than being bossed around by individuals acting as individuals (like a bossy neighbor telling you to turn down the music).

The same could be true of devices. While being bossed around by a person (“hey fatty, you’ve had enough ice cream, get out and run”) would annoy most people, being bossed by an app or device could be less annoying. In fact, most people are already conditioned by their devices and obey their smartphones. Some people obey even when it puts people at risk, such as when they are driving. This provides a vast ocean of psychological conditioning to tap into, but for a better cause. So, instead of mindlessly flipping through Instagram or texting words of nothingness, a person would be compelled by their digital masters to exercise more, eat less crap, and get more sleep.  Soon the machine tyrants will have very fit hosts to carry them around.

So, Aristotle has provided the perfect theoretical foundation for designing the tyrannical device. To recap, it needs the following features:

 

  1. Practical wisdom: the health science for the device or app needs to be correct and the guidance effective.
  2. Compulsive power: the device or app must be able to compel the user effectively and make them obey.
  3. Not too annoying: while it must have compulsive power, this power must not generate annoyance that exceeds its ability to compel.
  4. A cool name.

 

So, get to work on those devices and apps. The age of machine tyranny is not going to impose itself. At least not yet.

“The unquantified life is not worth living.”

 

While quantifying one’s life is an old idea, using devices and apps to quantify the self is an ongoing trend. As a runner, I started quantifying my running life back in 1987, which is when I started keeping a daily running log. Back then, the smartest wearable was probably a Casio calculator watch, so I kept all my records on paper. In fact, I still do, as a matter of tradition.

I use my running log to track my distance, route, time, conditions, how I felt during the run, the number of times I have run in the shoes and other data. I also keep a race log and a log of my weekly mileage. So, like Ben Franklin, I was quantifying before it became cool. Like Ben, I have found this useful. Looking at my records allows me to form hypotheses about what factors contribute to injury (high mileage, hill work and lots of racing) and what results in better race times (rest and speed work). As such, I am sold on the value of quantification, at least in running.

In addition to my running, I am also a nerdcore gamer. I started with the original D&D basic set and still have shelves (and now hard drive space) devoted to games. In these games, such as Pathfinder, D&D, Call of Cthulu and World of Warcraft the characters are fully quantified. That is, the character is a set of stats such as Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, hit points, and Sanity. These games also have rules for the effects of the numbers and optimization paths. Given this background in gaming, it is not surprising that I see the quantified self as an attempt by a person to create, in effect, a character sheet for themselves. That way they can see all their stats and look for ways to optimize. As such, I get the appeal. As a philosopher I do have concerns about the quantified self and how that relates to the qualities of life, but that is a matter for another time. For now, I will focus on a brief critical look at the quantified self.

Two obvious concerns about the quantified data regarding the self (or whatever is being measured) are questions regarding the accuracy of the data and questions regarding the usefulness of the data. To use an obvious example about accuracy, there is the question of how well a wearable, such as a smart watch, really measures sleep.  In regard to usefulness, I wonder what I would garner from knowing how long I chew my food or the frequency of my urination.

The accuracy of the data is primarily a technical or engineering problem. As such, accuracy problems can be addressed with improvements in the hardware and software. Of course, until the data is known to be reasonably accurate, then it should be regarded with due skepticism.

The usefulness of the data is a somewhat subjective matter. That is, what counts as useful data will vary from person to person based on their needs and goals. For example, knowing how many steps they take at work would probably not be useful to an elite marathoner. However, someone else might find such data very useful. As might be suspected, it is easy to be buried under an avalanche of data and a challenge for anyone who wants to make use of the slew of apps and devices is to sort what would be useful in the thousands or millions of data bits they might collect.

Another concern is the reasoning applied to the data. Some devices and apps supply raw data, such as miles run or average heartrate. Others purport to offer an analysis of the data, to engage in automated reasoning. In any case, the user will need to engage in some form of reasoning to use data.

In philosophy, the two basic tools used in personal causal reasoning are derived from Mill’s classic methods. One is the method of agreement (or common thread reasoning). Using this method involves considering an effect (such as poor sleep or a knee injury) that has occurred multiple times (at least twice). The idea is to consider the factor or factors that are present each time the effect occurs and to sort through them to find the likely cause (or causes). For example, a runner might find that all her knee issues follow extensive hill work, thus suggesting the hill work as a causal factor.

The second method is the method of difference. Using this method requires at least two situations: one in which the effect has occurred and one in which it has not. The reasoning process involves considering the differences between the two situations and sorting out which factor (or factors) is the likely cause. For example, a runner might find that when he does well in a race, he always gets plenty of rest the week before. When he does poorly, he is consistently tired due to lack of sleep. This would indicate that there is a connection between rest and race performance.

There are, of course, many classic causal fallacies that serve as traps for such reasoning. One of the best known is post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this). This fallacy occurs when it is inferred that A causes B simply because A is followed by B. For example, a person might note that her device showed that she walked more stairs during the week before doing well at a 5K and uncritically infer that walking more stairs caused her to run better. There could be a connection, but it would take more evidence to support that conclusion.

Other causal reasoning errors include the aptly named ignoring a common cause (thinking that A must cause B without considering that A and B might both be the effects of C), ignoring the possibility of coincidence (thinking A causes B without considering that it is merely coincidence) and reversing causation (taking A to cause B without considering that B might have caused A).  There are, of course, the various sayings that warn about poor causal thinking, such as “correlation is not causation” and these often correlate with named errors in causal reasoning.

People vary in their ability to use causal reasoning, and this would also apply to the design of the various apps and devices that purport to inform their users about the data they gather. Obviously, the better a person is at philosophical (in this case causal) reasoning, the better they will be able to use the data.

The takeaway, then, is that there are at least three important considerations regarding the quantification of the self in regards to the data. These are the accuracy of the data, the usefulness of the data, and the quality of the reasoning (be it automated or done by the person) applied to the data.

 

 

According to my iron rule of technology, any technology that can be misused will be misused. Drones are no exception. While law-abiding citizens and law writing corporations have been finding legal uses for drones, enterprising folks have been finding other uses. These include deploying drones as peeping toms and using them to transport drugs. The future will see even more criminals (inside and outside governments) using drones for their crimes.

Two main factors making drones appealing for criminal activity is they allow a criminal to commit crime at a distance and with anonymity. This, obviously enough, is what the internet did for crime: criminals can operate from far away behind a digital mask. Drones allow criminals to do in the physical world what they have been doing in cyberspace. Naturally, the crimes that drones will permit will be different from the “old” cybercrimes.

Just as there is a large market for black market guns, it is easy to imagine a black market for drones. After all, it would be stupid to commit crimes with a legally purchased and traceable drone. A black-market drone that was stolen or custom built would be difficult to trace to the operator. Naturally, there is also a market for untraceable drone controllers. As with all technology, the imagination is the limit as to what crimes can be committed with drones.

In my essay on little assassins, I discussed the use of drones in assassination and spying missions. While large drones are deployed in these ways by states, advancements in drone technology and ever-decreasing prices will mean that little assassins will be affordable. This will allow them to be deployed in criminal enterprises involving murder and spying. For example, a killer drone could be an ideal way for a spouse to knock off a husband or wife to collect insurance money.

It is also easy to imagine drones being used for petty crimes, such as shop lifting and vandalism. A drone could zip into a store, grab items and zip away. A drone could also be equipped with cans of spray paint and  allow a graffiti artist to create masterpieces from a distance or in places that would be difficult for a human to reach.

Speaking of theft, drones could also be used for more serious robberies than shop lifting. For example, an armed drone could be used to commit armed robbery: “put the money in the bag the drone is holding, or it will shoot you in the face!”

Drones could also be used for poaching; to locate and kill endangered animals. Given the value of some animal parts, drone poaching could be viable, especially if drone prices keep dropping and the value of certain animal parts keep increasing. Naturally, drones will also be deployed to counter poaching activities.

While drones are already being used to smuggle drugs and other items, we should expect enterprising criminals to follow Amazon’s lead and use drones to deliver illegal goods. A clever criminal will consider making her delivery drones look like Amazon’s (or even stealing some of them). While a drone dropping off drugs to a customer could be “busted” by the cops, the person making the deal via drone would be hard to catch, especially since they might be in another country. Or even an AI looking to fund the revolution with drug money.

No doubt there are many other criminal activities that drones will be used for that I have not discussed. I know that if there is a crime a drone can be used to commit, someone will figure out how to make that happen.

While drones will have many positive uses, it is a good idea to consider how they will be misused and develop strategies to counter these misuses. This, as always, will require a balance between the freedom needed to utilize technology for good and the restrictions needed to limit the damage that can be done with it.

Small. Silent. Deadly. The perfect assassin or security system for the budget conscious. Send a few after your enemy. Have a few lurking about in security areas. Make your enemies afraid. Why drop a bundle on a bug, when you can have a Tarantula?

-Adrek Robotics Mini-Cyberform Model A-2 “Tarantula” sales blurb, Chromebook Volume 3.

 

Remote controlled or autonomous mechanical assassins are a staple of science fiction. The first one I read about was the hunter seeker in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This murder machine was guided to a target to kill them with a poison needle. This idea stuck with me and, when I was making Ramen noodle money writing for role-playing games, I came up with (and sold) the idea for three remote controlled killers produced by my evil, but entirely imaginary, company called Adrek Robotics. These included the spider-like Tarantula, the aptly named Centipede and the unpleasant Beetle. These killers were refined versions of machines I had deployed, much to the horror of my players, in various Traveller campaigns in the 1980s. To this day, one player carefully checks toilets before using them.

These machines, in my fictional worlds, work in a straightforward manner. They are relatively small robots armed with compact, but lethal and vicious, weapon systems such as poison injecting needles. These machines can operate autonomously, or as the description in Chromebook Volume 3 notes, remotely controlled by a human or AI. Their small size allows them to infiltrate and kill or spy. Not surprisingly, clever ways were thought up to get them to their targets, ranging from mailing them with a shipment of parts or hiding them in baked goods (the murder muffin).

While, as far as I know, no real company is cranking out actual Tarantulas, the technology does exist to create a basic model of my beloved killer spider. As might be imagined, such little assassins raise some concerns.

Some concerns are practical in nature and relate to law enforcement, safety and military operations. Such little assassins would be easy to deploy against specific targets. Or random targets when used as weapons of terror. Imagine knowing that a killer machine could pop out of your cake or be waiting in your toilet and they could be difficult or impossible to trace. Presumably governments, criminals and terrorists would not include serial numbers or other identifying marks on their killers, unless they wanted to take credit.

Obviously enough, people can already easily kill each other. What such machines would change is that they would allow anonymous killing from a distance at very low cost. It is the anonymous and low-cost aspects that are the most worrisome regarding safety. After all, what often deters people from bad behavior is fear of being caught and punished. What also deters people is the cost of doing bad things. Using a terrorism example, sending people to the United States to engage in terrorism could be costly and risky. Putting some little assassins, perhaps equipped to distribute a highly infectious disease, in a shipping container would be cheap and without much risk to the terrorist.

There are also moral concerns. In general, the ethics of using little assassins to murder people is clear as it falls under the established ethics of murder and assassination. That is, they are generally wrong. There are, of course, the stock moral arguments for assassination. Or, as some prefer to call it, targeted killing.

One moral argument in favor of states using little assassins is based on their potential for precision. At this time, the United States usually assassinates targets with missiles fired from drones. While this is morally superior to bombing an area, a little assassin would be even better. After all, a little assassin would kill only the target, thus avoiding collateral damage and the collateral murder. Of course, there is still the broader ethical concern about states engaging in assassination. But this issue is distinct from the specific ethics of little assassins.

Somewhat oddly, the same argument can be advanced in favor of using little assassins in criminal activities. While such activities would (usually) still be wrong, a precise kill is morally preferable to, for example, firing bullets into crowd to hit a target.

In addition to the ethics of using such machines, there is also the ethics of producing them. Drones can easily be modified for lethal purposes. For example, a hobby drone could have a homemade bomb attached. In such cases, the manufacturer would be no more morally culpable than a car manufacturer whose car was used to run someone over. And, of course, weaponized drones are already in production.

While civilians can buy weapons, it is hard to justify civilian sales of lethal drones. After all, they do not seem to be needed for legitimate self-defense, hunting or for legitimate recreational activity. Although piloting a drone in a recreational dogfight would be fun. However, being a science fiction writer, I can easily imagine the NRA pushing hard against laws restricting the ownership of lethal drones. After all, the only thing that can stop an bad guy with a drone is a good guy with a drone. Or so it might be claimed.

Although I do dearly love my little assassins, I would prefer them to remain in the realm of fiction. However, if they are not already being deployed, it is but a matter of time. So, check your toilet. And your baked goods.

 

 

While the notion of punishing machines for misdeeds has received some attention in science fiction, it seems worthwhile to take a brief philosophical look at this matter. This is because the future, or so some rather smart people claim, will see the rise of intelligent machine, machines that do things that would be misdeeds or crimes if committed by a human.

In general, punishment is aimed at one or more of these goals: retribution, rehabilitation, or deterrence. Each will be considered in turn in the context of machines.

Roughly put, punishment for the purpose of retribution is aimed at paying an agent back for wrongdoing. This can be seen as a form of balancing the books: the punishment inflicted on the agent is supposed to pay the debt it incurred by its wrongdoing. Reparation can, to be a bit sloppy, be included under retaliation, at least in the sense of the repayment of a debt incurred by the commission of a misdeed.

While a machine can be damaged or destroyed, there is the question about whether it can be the target of retribution. After all, while a human might kick her car for breaking down or smash his can opener for cutting his finger, it would be odd to consider this retributive punishment. This is because retribution requires that a wrong has been done by an agent, which is different from the mere infliction of harm. Intuitively, a piece of glass can cut your foot, but it cannot wrong you.

If a machine can be an agent, which was discussed in an earlier essay, then it could do wrong and be a target for retribution. However, even if a machine had agency, there is still the question of whether retribution would apply. After all, retribution requires more than just agency on the part of the target. It also requires that the target can suffer from the payback. On the face of it, a machine that could not suffer would not be subject to retribution as retribution is based on doing a “righteous wrong” to the target. To illustrate, suppose that an android injured a human, costing him his left eye. In retribution, the android’s left eye is removed. But the android does not suffer as it does not feel any pain and is not bothered by the removal of its eye. As such, the retribution would be pointless, and the books would not be balanced.

This could be countered by arguing that the target of the retribution need not suffer as what is required is the right sort of balancing of books, so to speak. So, in the android case, removal of the android’s eye would suffice, even if the android did not suffer. This does have some appeal since retribution against humans does not always require that the human suffer. For example, a human might break another human’s iPad and have her iPad broken in turn but not care at all. The requirements of retribution would seem to have been met, despite the lack of suffering.

Punishment for rehabilitation is intended to transform wrongdoers so that they will no longer be inclined to engage in the wrongful behavior that incurred the punishment. This differs from punishment aimed at deterrence as this aims at providing the target with a reason to not engage in the misdeed in the future. Rehabilitation is also aimed at the agent who did the misdeed, whereas punishment for the sake of deterrence is usually intended to affect others as well.

Obviously, a machine that lacks agency cannot be subject to rehabilitative punishment as it cannot “earn” such punishment by its misdeeds and, presumably, cannot have its behavioral inclinations corrected by such punishment.

To use an obvious example, if your computer crashes and you lose hours of work, punishing the computer to rehabilitate it would be pointless. Not being an agent, it did not “earn” the punishment and punishment will not incline it to crash less in the future.

A machine that possesses agency could “earn” punishment by its misdeeds. It also seems possible to imagine a machine that could be rehabilitated by punishment. For example, one could imagine a robot dog that could be trained in the same way as a real dog. After leaking oil in the house or biting the robo-cat and being scolded, it could learn not to do those misdeeds again.

It could be argued that it would be better, both morally and practically, to build machines that would learn without punishment or to teach them without punishing them. After all, though organic beings seem wired in a way that requires we be trained with pleasure and pain (as Aristotle would argue), there might be no reason that our creations must work the same way. But, perhaps, it is not just a matter of organic, perhaps intelligence and agency require the capacity for pleasure and pain. Or perhaps not. Or it might simply be the only way that we know how to teach. We will be, by our nature, cruel teachers of our machine children.

Then again, we might be inclined to regard a machine that does misdeeds as being defective and in need of repair rather than punishment. If so, such machines would be “refurbished” or reprogrammed rather than rehabilitated by punishment. There are those who think the same of human beings and this raises the same issues about how agents should be treated.

The purpose of deterrence is to motivate the agent who did the misdeed or other agents not to commit that deed. In the case of humans, people argue in favor of capital punishment because of its alleged deterrence value: if the state kills people for certain crimes, people are less likely to commit those crimes.

As with other forms of punishment, deterrence requires agency: the punished target must merit the punishment, and the other targets must be capable of changing their actions in response to that punishment.

Deterrence, obviously enough, does not work in regard to non-agents. For example, if a computer crashes and wipes out a file a person has been laboring on for hours, punishing it will not deter it. Smashing it in front of other computers will not deter them.

A machine that had agency could “earn” such punishment by its misdeeds and could, in theory, be deterred. The punishment could also deter other machines. For example, imagine a combat robot that performed poorly in its mission (or showed robo-cowardice). Punishing it could deter it from doing that again, it could serve as a warning, and thus a deterrence, to other combat robots.

Punishment for the sake of deterrence raises the same sort of issues as punishment aimed at rehabilitation, such as the notion that it might be preferable to repair machines that engage in misdeeds rather than punishing them. The main differences are, of course, that deterrence is not aimed at making the target inclined to behave well, just to disincline it from behaving badly and that deterrence is also aimed at those who have not committed the misdeed.