Ethical and Social Implications

This fear about artificial intelligence, one that humans have often imagined- the machines or robots “taking over,” is just as much a social issue. Bill Gates recently said, in reference to the advancement of artificial intelligence, “I don’t understand why some people are not concerned.” And according to Elon Musk, Tesla’s exec, AI could be “our biggest existential threat” (Holley, 2015). Hearing that corporate technology giants fear the capabilities of artificial intelligence, certainly puts the idea into perspective. Many fear that AI machines could rapidly advance till we can no longer control them. "Once you start to make machines that are rivaling and surpassing humans with intelligence, it's going to be very difficult for us to survive,” Gates added.

An important social, ethical, and legal implication would be the treatment of AI robots and whether they’d be given rights if they eventually became incredibly human-like and able to process pain and emotion. It isn’t hard to imagine a world where people can’t comprehend that a machine is more than a thing and if artificial intelligence advanced to the point where robots were thinking for themselves we could not morally allow people to live that way. Mistreating machines that are made to think like us “would be detrimental to humankind's moral, ethical and psychological well-being” (Ashrafian, 2015). Though the machines may not have a beating heart, it seems more crucial that they have a working mind that can understand what is happening around them or to them. On the other hand, we would also have to acknowledge the differing relationships that could arise between humans and robots and whether it would be something society could accept. And if robots could be hacked into committing crimes, what would be the legality there? It is undeniable that society would have to rearrange itself for this new group of peers.