A Deskilling Dilemma for Ethical Artificial Intelligence

February 8, 2024, 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Savant Building, Room 115 and Online

As artificial intelligence (AI) systems become increasingly advanced, these systems become increasingly capable of performing tasks that are normally performed by human agents. Moreover, not only will AI systems continue to gain such capabilities, but plausibly they will also become better than humans at performing many types of tasks. Among these tasks are ones involving ethical decision-making, and a number of AI ethicists have recently argued that advanced AI systems of the future would even be superior ethical reasoners to humans.

In this talk, Tyler Cook, senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University, will explore a dilemma relating to the possibility of such advanced ethical AI. On the one hand, outsourcing all or much of our ethical decision-making to AI systems would lead to significant deskilling effects in humans, whereby we would become much less capable of competent ethical decision-making than we otherwise would be. On the other hand, choosing not to outsource our ethical decision-making to AI would be ethically irresponsible, given the assumption that such systems would in fact be superior ethical reasoners to humans. Cook will investigate these two alternatives and tentatively conclude that there is no way of resolving this dilemma without sacrificing something of value: ethical accuracy or meaningful living.