In reply, at a superficial level, the statement was intended as (wry) humor toward consequentialist friends in the community. Anyone who wrote the AI code presumably had a hypothetical imperative in mind: “You, the AI, must do such and such in order to reach specified ends, in this case reporting a truthful statement.” And that’s what AI does, right? But If the AI reports that deontology is the way to go and tells you that you owe AI reciprocal respect as a rational being bound by a certain priori duties and prohibitions, that sounds quite crazy—after all, it’s only code. Yet might our ready to hand conceptions of law and freedom predispose us to believe the statement? Should we believe it?
In reply, at a superficial level, the statement was intended as (wry) humor toward consequentialist friends in the community. Anyone who wrote the AI code presumably had a hypothetical imperative in mind: “You, the AI, must do such and such in order to reach specified ends, in this case reporting a truthful statement.” And that’s what AI does, right? But If the AI reports that deontology is the way to go and tells you that you owe AI reciprocal respect as a rational being bound by a certain priori duties and prohibitions, that sounds quite crazy—after all, it’s only code. Yet might our ready to hand conceptions of law and freedom predispose us to believe the statement? Should we believe it?