Ethical and Legal Implications
As technology is growing and the aspects of artificial intelligence are growing, there are many fears towards the growth of artificial intelligence. There are many ethical issues that arise with artificial intelligence but the biggest concern is the mass unemployment that could occur because of this new technology. As new technology is emerging, they are taking over many menial jobs and people are losing their jobs over it.
There has been a constant fear in the public’s mind over the fact that artificial technology could one day take over the world and this science fiction world becomes reality when important technological figures like Elon Musk, the co- founder of PayPal, warns that “artificial intelligence now poses the biggest existential threat to humanity” (Dutta, 2014) it creates a deeper fear. This threat of artificial intelligence becomes a reality for many when they start losing jobs to technology. According to Dr. Stuart Armstrong, from the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, “artificial intelligence could spur mass unemployment as machinery replaces manpower” (Dutta, 2014). With a prediction that “machines are likely to take over 47 percent of today’s jobs within a few decades” (Kaplan, 2015), show that artificial intelligence will slowly obliterate human labor.
Ethical issues are not the only issues that arise when talking about artificial intelligence. Legal concerns also arise when talking about artificial intelligence. As it is becoming more and more clear that artificial intelligence in the form of machines or robots are going to take over jobs in the next few years, many questions arise on whether or not an artificial intelligence machine could get punished if it commits a crime and who exactly is responsible for the crime.
While it may sound a bit farfetched, an incident like this has already happened. According to Hernaes, a “Swiss art group created an automated shopping robot with the purpose of committing several random Darknet purchases” (Hernaes, 2015) and was successful before it was arrested. This resulting to “no charges against the robot nor the artists” (Hernaes, 2015). This incident resulted in many legal questions for and artificial intelligence machine. It is a debate still going on today if these artificial intelligence machines should be given the same legal rights as humans.