Companies and governments are probably the most likely organisations to play host superintelligent machines in the future.
They are around today—and I think many of the efforts on machine morality would be better spent on making those organisations more human-friendly. “Don’t be evil” is just not good enough!
Because all except (so it is claimed) one company and all governments bar none do not even pretend to embrace this attitude.
I think reputation systems would help a lot.
OK, so my government gets low karma. So what? How does that stop them for doing whatever they want to for years to come?
If you suggest it would cause members of parliament to vote no confidence and cause early elections—something which only applies in a many-parties democracy—then I suggest that in such a situation no government could remain stable for long. There’d be a new cause celebre every other week, and a government only has to lose one vote to fall.
And if the public, through karma, could force government to act in certain ways without going through elections, then we’d have direct democracy with absolute-majority-rule. A system that’s even worse than what we have today.
Of course, governments and companies have reputations today.
There are few enough countries that people can keep track of their reputations reasonably easily when it comes to trade, travel and changing citizenship.
It is probably companies where reputations are needed the most. You can search—and there’s resources like:
Companies and governments are probably the most likely organisations to play host superintelligent machines in the future.
They are around today—and I think many of the efforts on machine morality would be better spent on making those organisations more human-friendly. “Don’t be evil” is just not good enough!
I think reputation systems would help a lot. See my “Universal karma” video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfArOZVKCCw
Because all except (so it is claimed) one company and all governments bar none do not even pretend to embrace this attitude.
OK, so my government gets low karma. So what? How does that stop them for doing whatever they want to for years to come?
If you suggest it would cause members of parliament to vote no confidence and cause early elections—something which only applies in a many-parties democracy—then I suggest that in such a situation no government could remain stable for long. There’d be a new cause celebre every other week, and a government only has to lose one vote to fall.
And if the public, through karma, could force government to act in certain ways without going through elections, then we’d have direct democracy with absolute-majority-rule. A system that’s even worse than what we have today.
Of course, governments and companies have reputations today.
There are few enough countries that people can keep track of their reputations reasonably easily when it comes to trade, travel and changing citizenship.
It is probably companies where reputations are needed the most. You can search—and there’s resources like:
http://www.dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Business/Allegedly_Unethical_Firms/
...but society needs more.