Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS - Rational Machines

Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS - Rational Machines

From: M. Nagenborg <[email protected]>
Date: Tue 07 Mar 2006 - 21:41:06 CET

Dear Karl,

thanks a lot for starting off the discussion!

Here are some questions regarding your answers:

Karl Javorszky schrieb:
>
> **In case we would be able to construct an Artificial Person, we would
> have to address these points, too.
>
Yes, but an ethical question may also be, why would we like to design an
Artificial Person?

For sure it would be nice if any agent (i. E. a robot or some form of
AI) would act in such a way, that human beings would regard it as
"ethical" (in the sense of: "good by the standards of the underlying
ethical principles"). But I assume that your Notion of "Artificial
Person" goes beyond this - and I do not see, why we should design a full
autonomous, moral being. The problem is: Since Human beings are often
not very good concerning "ethical" behaviour, the quest of designing an
"ethical Artificial Person" might lead us to the idea, that an
"Artificial Person" should be better than a human being in some regards
- and I am not quite sure, how we can make the decission, what part of
"Humanity" should be part of the design and which not.
>
> Q2. /What is the philosophic and ethical challenge of modern
> information technology with regard to human freedom? /How far do we
> conceive the 'cyberspace' or, more generally speaking, the potential
> digitization of all phenomena (human and non human) as a (the?)
> condition for understanding them, and what does this mean with regard
> to human behavior? More specifically: do we conceive ourselves
> eventually as information processing devices?, and if yes, what
> follows with regard to artificial digital devices that we are creating
> now and in the future?
> A2: The CNS (central nervous system) is an information processing
> device. The question is, whether one thinks himself outside his CNS.
>
The question to me is: Do you really believe that the CNS is an
"information processing device", when discussing about Humans and
"modern information technology" (as stated in Q2)? The meaning of
"information" in "information technology" seems to be very limited to
me, so that we should make a distinction between "information in the
context of ICT (used by Humans)" and "information within the context of
the CNS". This distinction is also important form the point of Ethics,
which is about human beings, not CNSs. (Of course, the meaning of "human
being" might be challanged by our scientific knowledge, i. e. about the
CNS, but that is another question.)

With best regards,
Michael

-- 
Dr. phil. Michael Nagenborg
R�ppurrer Str. 116
D-76137 Karlsruhe
Tel. +49(0)721 3545955
Fax +49(0)721 3545956
www.michaelnagenborg.de
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Received on Tue Mar 7 21:35:26 2006


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