Re: personal AI

The therapist example triggered an interesting experience I recently had.

I watched an interview on the topic of AI with the Archbishop of Vienna, 
a cardinal of the Catholic Church.
The interviewer asked him what the rise of AI meant for the Church's 
understanding of human nature, and whether humanity's unique position as 
the "pride of creation" might eventually be challenged.
The cardinal's answer was similar to the messages in this thread, i.e. 
even if AI becomes so good that it's indistinguishable from humans in an 
interaction, it will never itself "be human", feel empathy, love, fear, etc.

But then later in the interview he admitted that some of his priests use 
AI for writing their sermons, and that he thought it was okay to do that 
"on occasion" :)

Similar to the question of the social implications of interacting with 
"personal" AIs that represent human beings: What might be the 
implications of "divine" AIs trained with data sets from holy 
scriptures, word of God, that sort of thing? Scary? Or no problem as 
long as you "know" what's behind it?

Markus

On 4/29/24 11:21, Daniel Hardman wrote:
> I feel like we are not yet pondering deeply enough how an AI alters 
> the social texture of an interaction. What is an AI's social and 
> emotional intelligence, not just its ability to get work done -- and 
> what is the social and emotional intelligence of us ordinary humans, 
> vis-a-vis these tools?
>
> Per se, an AI has no human rights and triggers no social obligations 
> on the part of those who interact with it. If I hang up the phone on 
> an AI, or never respond to their messages, I don't believe I am being 
> rude. And an AI has no right to privacy, no right to a fair trial, 
> cannot be the victim of doxxing, etc.
>
> However, associating an AI strongly with a human that it represents 
> introduces a social quandry that has never existed before, which is 
> how to impute rights to the AI because of its association with a 
> human. True, the AI has no standing in the social contract that would 
> lead one to respond to its messages -- but if that AI represents a 
> real human being, it is in fact the human being we are ignoring, not 
> just the AI that does the human's bidding.
>
> Is lying to an AI that does Alice's bidding ethically the same as 
> lying to Alice herself? Would it depend on the degree and intent of 
> the AI's empowerment? What if Alice terminates her relationship with 
> the AI -- does the grievance stay with Alice or with the AI?
>
> If I am a therapist who happens to have a really fabulous AI that can 
> conduct remote therapy sessions over chat, is it ethical for me to go 
> on vacation and leave my AI to counsel people about their deepest 
> personal sorrows and perplexities, without telling them -- even if 
> they can't tell the difference?
>
> I believe human beings have the right to know whether they are 
> interacting with other human beings directly, or merely with a piece 
> of technology that's doing another human's bidding and can pass the 
> Turing test. This allows interpersonal and social judgments that are 
> crucial to how we get along with one another. I am excited about the 
> good that AI can do, and about the prospect of personal AIs, but I am 
> categorically opposed to hiding the difference between people and AIs. 
> The difference is real, and it matters profoundly.
>
> Alan said:
> > Do we ask for proof of humanity of other software running on behalf 
> of a person?  What if a personal AI carries out its task using an 
> application?  Isn't the human who determines what the software, AI or 
> otherwise, supposed to do the responsible party?
>
> Adrian said:
> >The group could not think of a single reason to make a distinction 
> between me and an AI that I control as my delegate. To introduce such 
> a "CAPTCHA on steroids" is to limit technological enhancement to 
> corporations and "others". Will we treat personal technological 
> enhancement the way we treat doping in sports? Who would benefit from 
> imposing such a restriction on technological enhancement? How would we 
> interpret the human right of Freedom of Association and Assembly 
> (Article 20) to exclude open source communities creating open source 
> personal AI that an individual can take responsibility for? Certifying 
> the vendor, provenance, and training data of a personal AI seems like 
> the last thing we would want to do. I hope what Drummond is suggesting 
> applies to AI that is not transparent and controlled by an individual 
> or a community of individuals in a transparent way. How do we see a 
> world where two kinds of AI, personal and "certified" interact?
>
> Drummond said:
> > Manu has a good point. I have no problem interacting with an AI bot 
> as long as I can be sure it’s an AI bot—and ideally if I can check its 
> vendor, provenance, trained data sets, etc.
>
> Manu said:
> > Another interesting aspect here is that "the bots" are, probably
> within the next decade, going to legitimately exceed the level of
> expertise of 99.9% of the population on most subjects that could be
> discussed in an online forum. I, for one, welcome our new robot troll
> overlords. :P
>