27,260 research outputs found

    Building Ethically Bounded AI

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    The more AI agents are deployed in scenarios with possibly unexpected situations, the more they need to be flexible, adaptive, and creative in achieving the goal we have given them. Thus, a certain level of freedom to choose the best path to the goal is inherent in making AI robust and flexible enough. At the same time, however, the pervasive deployment of AI in our life, whether AI is autonomous or collaborating with humans, raises several ethical challenges. AI agents should be aware and follow appropriate ethical principles and should thus exhibit properties such as fairness or other virtues. These ethical principles should define the boundaries of AI's freedom and creativity. However, it is still a challenge to understand how to specify and reason with ethical boundaries in AI agents and how to combine them appropriately with subjective preferences and goal specifications. Some initial attempts employ either a data-driven example-based approach for both, or a symbolic rule-based approach for both. We envision a modular approach where any AI technique can be used for any of these essential ingredients in decision making or decision support systems, paired with a contextual approach to define their combination and relative weight. In a world where neither humans nor AI systems work in isolation, but are tightly interconnected, e.g., the Internet of Things, we also envision a compositional approach to building ethically bounded AI, where the ethical properties of each component can be fruitfully exploited to derive those of the overall system. In this paper we define and motivate the notion of ethically-bounded AI, we describe two concrete examples, and we outline some outstanding challenges.Comment: Published at AAAI Blue Sky Track, winner of Blue Sky Awar

    Consciousness and Cosmos: Building an Ontological Framework

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    Contemporary theories of consciousness are based on widely different concepts of its nature, most or all of which probably embody aspects of the truth about it. Starting with a concept of consciousness indicated by the phrase “the feeling of what happens” (the title of a book by Antonio Damásio), we attempt to build a framework capable of supporting and resolving divergent views. We picture consciousness in terms of Reality experiencing itself from the perspective of cognitive agents. Each conscious experience is regarded as composed of momentary feeling events that are combined by recognition and evaluation into extended conscious episodes that bind cognitive contents with a wide range of apparent durations (0.1 secs to 2 or more secs, for us humans, depending on circumstances and context). Three necessary conditions for the existence of consciousness are identified: a) a ground of Reality, envisaged as an universal field of potentiality encompassing all possible manifestations, whether material or 'mental'; b) a transitional zone, leading to; c) a manifest world with its fundamental divisions into material, 'informational' and quale-endowed aspects. We explore ideas about the nature of these necessary conditions, how they may relate to one another and whether our suggestions have empirical implications

    A Validation Study of the Orientation Model

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    The orientation model is a multidimensional measure of dual-processing capacities that incorporates four empirically-validated instruments taken from the existing literature on cognitive processing, attachment, empathy, and self-focused attention. As a strength-based conceptualization tool for humanistic counseling practices, the model is intended to provide counselors with a flexible means to assess non-diagnostic client attributes within a dispositional model of client cognitive processing patterns. Although humanistic principles often conflict with the use of quantitative instruments in clinical practice, the model is guided by the tenet that objective measures can effectively supplement clinical insight into client patterns of functioning. It thus serves as a means by which to bridge the gap between objective testing and the philosophical tenets upheld by humanistic counselors. As such, this survey-based study examined the habitual use of dual-process tendencies using four established, non-clinical, and empirically-validated instruments: the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI; Epstein, Pacini, Denes-Raj, & Heier, 1996), the Differentiation of Self Inventory-Revised (DSI-R; Skowron & Schmitt, 2003), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980), and the Reflection-Rumination Questionnaire (RRQ; Trapnell & Campbell, 1999). The coherence of the orientation model rests on the presupposition that each of the subscales within the four instruments correspond with distinct dual-processing styles. The current study was designed to explore this possibility in order to validate the conceptual underpinnings of the orientation model itself. Self-report responses from 375 college students were used to determine whether relationships grounded in dual-processing capacities exist among the disparate model variables. Canonical correlation and multivariate analysis of variance results suggest that the orientation model provides a descriptive framework for distinguishing self-perceived adaptiveness or perceptiveness from emotional vulnerability or sensitivity rather than providing an explanatory foundation linked to dual process theories. This interpretation is examined in relation to the dual-processing literature, and directions for future research and theory generation are suggested. Practical implications are discussed in terms of applying the model as a case conceptualization tool in clinical and supervisory settings, concerns related to potential misinterpretations of a thinking/feeling dichotomy in clinical practice, and the therapeutic value of the instruments outside a dual-process framework

    A conceptual comparison of well-being measures used in the UK

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    There is significantpolitical interest in the UK in measuring subjective well- being (SWB) and the possibility of incorporating such measures into policy, including health policy. A number of different, yet related, measures of well-being and health are used across government departments. This includes four summary subjective (personal) well -being questions which ask about life satisfaction, happiness yesterday, anxiety yesterday and worthwhileness adopted by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) under its Measuring National Well-being Programme(referred to here as the ONS-4). They have also adopted the use of the short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (S- WEMWBS) and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) which is a mental health screening measure that has been used in well-being measurement. In addition to the measures used within the ONS framework, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) currently rely upon the EQ-5D, a measure of health- related quality of life (HRQoL), in the assessment of medical technologies and public health interventions while social care guidance includes measures of capability and need, ICECAP-A and Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolki
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