Programming morality

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nobspeople
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Programming morality

Post #1

Post by nobspeople »

Allow me, if you will, to take us years into the future (assuming humanity doesn't kill itself first). Humanity has been able to build androids.
Some are used for physical or dangerous work, others for service, other's still for 'personal use' (ew). They must be programmed to do their tasks.
What about 'care giving'.
To do so, humanity decides we have to program 'morality' into them, as morality is programmed into humans all the time - seems like a doable task.

For discussion:
Will humanity ever be able to program morality into a machine?
Why or why not?
Have a great, potentially godless, day!

Sherlock Holmes

Re: Programming morality

Post #2

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

nobspeople wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 9:46 am Allow me, if you will, to take us years into the future (assuming humanity doesn't kill itself first). Humanity has been able to build androids.
Some are used for physical or dangerous work, others for service, other's still for 'personal use' (ew). They must be programmed to do their tasks.
What about 'care giving'.
To do so, humanity decides we have to program 'morality' into them, as morality is programmed into humans all the time - seems like a doable task.

For discussion:
Will humanity ever be able to program morality into a machine?
Why or why not?
Basically no, it isn't possible in my opinion. Machine's are algorithmic, digital computers follow - relentlessly and endlessly - formal rules, algorithms, they are glorified finite state machines.

There are some interesting scientific and philosophical arguments that the human mind is capable of non-algorithmic processes, that is we are capable of solving what are termed non-computable problems, if this plays a role in morality then clearly a machine that is purely algorithmic can never solve these kinds of problems.

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Re: Programming morality

Post #3

Post by Bust Nak »

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #2]

There is no reason why computer has to remain purely algorithmic, is there? It's as easy as adding in an analogue component into the decision path.

Sherlock Holmes

Re: Programming morality

Post #4

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Bust Nak wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 4:30 am [Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #2]

There is no reason why computer has to remain purely algorithmic, is there? It's as easy as adding in an analogue component into the decision path.
Analog devices are algorithmic, they implement computable functions.

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Re: Programming morality

Post #5

Post by Bust Nak »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:59 am Analog devices are algorithmic, they implement computable functions.
They can be, but they don't need to be. Your brain is an analogue computer.

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Re: Programming morality

Post #6

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #4]
Analog devices are algorithmic, they implement computable functions.
But they are far less predictable and with much more variation in outcome, expecially when combined with other analog circuits. And they are generally continuous rather than discrete in their behavior. I've designed many transimpedance preamps for optical detectors with a wide range of shunt resistances (and bought many from commercial sources), and they can oscillate when they technically shouldn't, saturate before they are "supposed" to, exhibit nonlinearities and offsets that differ from the datasheets by sometimes significant amounts, react differently to EMI sources, etc. And these are relatively simple analog circuits. Their behavior can also change over time as components age and drift in their R/C/L/beta, etc. values.

How many SPICE models predict "exactly" how an analog circuit wil behave in the real world? Put a bunch of these kinds of analog circuits together and the ability to compute exactlly their behavior gets progressively less accurate. Component tolerances are one significant reason for this, and I can see how throwing in a bunch of analog circuits can lead to some level of unpredictability in the output ... the more complicated the circuitry and the more components, the worse this gets.
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Sherlock Holmes

Re: Programming morality

Post #7

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Bust Nak wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:44 am
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:59 am Analog devices are algorithmic, they implement computable functions.
They can be, but they don't need to be. Your brain is an analogue computer.
The brain does bear a resemblance to an analog computer but as to whether it "is" I don't know that I agree.

The fact is analog electronics devices always implement computable functions like summation, multiplication, differentiation and so on, given that our brains appear to sometimes be capable of evaluating non-computable functions, then whether it be digital or analog, we are still facing the limitation that these machines can only ever evaluate computable functions, this they can never achieve what our brains can.

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Re: Programming morality

Post #8

Post by Bust Nak »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:03 am The brain does bear a resemblance to an analog computer but as to whether it "is" I don't know that I agree.

The fact is analog electronics devices always implement computable functions like summation, multiplication, differentiation and so on
Just like the neurons in your brain.
given that our brains appear to sometimes be capable of evaluating non-computable functions...
So can your everyday digital computer, it's just that sometimes they get them wrong, sometimes they don't halt. Our human brain faces the same limitation.

Sherlock Holmes

Re: Programming morality

Post #9

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

DrNoGods wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:54 am [Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #4]
Analog devices are algorithmic, they implement computable functions.
But they are far less predictable and with much more variation in outcome, expecially when combined with other analog circuits. And they are generally continuous rather than discrete in their behavior. I've designed many transimpedance preamps for optical detectors with a wide range of shunt resistances (and bought many from commercial sources), and they can oscillate when they technically shouldn't, saturate before they are "supposed" to, exhibit nonlinearities and offsets that differ from the datasheets by sometimes significant amounts, react differently to EMI sources, etc. And these are relatively simple analog circuits. Their behavior can also change over time as components age and drift in their R/C/L/beta, etc. values.

How many SPICE models predict "exactly" how an analog circuit wil behave in the real world? Put a bunch of these kinds of analog circuits together and the ability to compute exactlly their behavior gets progressively less accurate. Component tolerances are one significant reason for this, and I can see how throwing in a bunch of analog circuits can lead to some level of unpredictability in the output ... the more complicated the circuitry and the more components, the worse this gets.
This is all true and although we can't predict their behavior we agree (I assume) that this is due to our mathematical model being overly simple or our knowledge of the parameters being less precise than we need, after all these devices must obey the laws of physics, that is everything is bound by laws.

Morality implies free will to me, and free will seems incompatible with anything based on computable functions, even functions that contain randomness.

Sherlock Holmes

Re: Programming morality

Post #10

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Bust Nak wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:10 am
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:03 am The brain does bear a resemblance to an analog computer but as to whether it "is" I don't know that I agree.

The fact is analog electronics devices always implement computable functions like summation, multiplication, differentiation and so on
Just like the neurons in your brain.
given that our brains appear to sometimes be capable of evaluating non-computable functions...
So can your everyday digital computer, it's just that sometimes they get them wrong, sometimes they don't halt. Our human brain faces the same limitation.
That's the rub though, they cannot. Non-computable means there is no algorithm possible, not even in principle, no amount of skill and design can lead to a workable algorithm.

The simplest example of non computability is the famous "halting problem" this is where we are to devise an algorithm H that can examine some other algorithm X and tell us if X can ever stop, it is generally insoluble and there are many other more complex examples.

We cannot devise a set of rules that can tell us if some other set of rules always terminates or not, in other words H(X) is non computable.

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