Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a digital technology that will be of major importance for the development of humanity in the near future. AI has raised fundamental questions about what we should do with such systems, what the systems themselves should do, what risks they involve and how we can control these. - After the background to the field (1), this article introduces the main debates (2), first on ethical issues that arise with AI systems as objects, i.e. tools made and used by humans; here, the main sections are privacy (2.1), manipulation (2.2), opacity (2.3), bias (2.4), autonomy & responsibility (2.6) and the singularity (2.7). Then we look at AI systems as subjects, i.e. when ethics is for the AI systems themselves in machine ethics (2.8.) and artificial moral agency (2.9). Finally we look at future developments and the concept of AI (3). For each section within these themes, we provide a general explanation of the ethical issues, we outline existing positions and arguments, then we analyse how this plays out with current technologies and finally what policy conse-quences may be drawn

Measuring progress in robotics: Benchmarking and the ‘measure-target confusion’

While it is often said that robotics should aspire to reproducible and measurable results that allow benchmarking, I argue that a focus on benchmarking can be a hindrance for progress in robotics. The reason is what I call the ‘measure-target confusion’, the confusion between a measure of progress and the target of progress. Progress on a benchmark (the measure) is not identical to scientific or technological progress (the target). In the past, several academic disciplines have been led into pursuing only reproducible and measurable ‘scientific’ results – robotics should be careful to follow that line because results that can be benchmarked must be specific and context-dependent, but robotics targets whole complex systems for a broad variety of contexts. While it is extremely valuable to improve benchmarks to reduce the distance be- tween measure and target, the general problem to measure progress towards more intelligent machines (the target) will not be solved by benchmarks alone; we need a balanced approach with sophisticated benchmarks, plus real-life testing, plus qualitative judgment

Philosophy and theory of artificial intelligence 2017

This book reports on the results of the third edition of the premier conference in the field of philosophy of artificial intelligence, PT-AI 2017, held on November 4 - 5, 2017 at the University of Leeds, UK. It covers: advanced knowledge on key AI concepts, including complexity, computation, creativity, embodiment, representation and superintelligence; cutting-edge ethical issues, such as the AI impact on human dignity and society, responsibilities and rights of machines, as well as AI threats to humanity and AI safety; and cutting-edge developments in techniques to achieve AI, including machine learning, neural networks, dynamical systems. The book also discusses important applications of AI, including big data analytics, expert systems, cognitive architectures, and robotics. It offers a timely, yet very comprehensive snapshot of what is going on in the field of AI, especially at the interfaces between philosophy, cognitive science, ethics and computing

Two-vibron bound states lifetime in a one-dimensional molecular lattice coupled to acoustic phonons

The lifetime of two-vibron bound states in the overtone region of a one-dimensional anharmonic molecular lattice is investigated. The anharmonicity, introduced within an attractive Hubbard Hamiltonian for bosons, is responsible for the formation of bound states which belong to a finite linewidth band located below the continuum of two-vibron free states. The decay of these bound states into either bound or free states, is described by considering the coupling between the vibrons and a thermal bath formed by a set of low frequency acoustic phonons. The relaxation rate is expressed in terms of the spectral distribution of the vibron/phonon coupling and of the two-vibron Green operator which is calculated exactly by using the number states method. The behavior of the two-vibron bound states relaxation rate is analyzed with a special emphasis on the influence of the anharmonicity. It is shown that the rate exhibits two distinct regimes depending on the thermal bath dimension. When the bath dimension is equal to unity, the rate increases with the anharmonicity and the decay of the two-vibron bound states into the other bound states appears as the main contribution of the rate. By contrast, when the bath dimension is equal to 2 and 3, the rate decreases as the anharmonicity increases indicating that the two-vibron bound states decay into the two-vibron free states continuum.Comment: January 200

Blended Cognition

The central concept of this edited volume is "blended cognition", the natural skill of human beings for combining constantly different heuristics during their several task-solving activities. Something that was sometimes observed like a problem as “bad reasoning”, is now the central key for the understanding of the richness, adaptability and creativity of human cognition. The topic of this book connects in a significant way with the disciplines of psychology, neurology, anthropology, philosophy, logics, engineering, logics, and AI. In a nutshell: understanding better humans for designing better machines. It contains a Preface by the editors and 12 chapters

Vibron-polaron critical localization in a finite size molecular nanowire

The small polaron theory is applied to describe the vibron dynamics in an adsorbed nanowire with a special emphasis onto finite size effects. It is shown that the finite size of the nanowire discriminates between side molecules and core molecules which experience a different dressing mechanism. Moreover, the inhomogeneous behavior of the polaron hopping constant is established and it is shown that the core hopping constant depends on the lattice size. However, the property of a lattice with translational invariance is recovered when the size of the nanowire is greater than a critical value. Finally, it is pointed out that these features yield the occurrence of high energy localized states which both the nature and the number are summarized in a phase diagram in terms of the relevant parameters of the problem (small polaron binding energy, temperature, lattice size).Comment: 17 pages, 10 figure

Classical sampling theorems in the context of multirate and polyphase digital filter bank structures

The recovery of a signal from so-called generalized samples is a problem of designing appropriate linear filters called reconstruction (or synthesis) filters. This relationship is reviewed and explored. Novel theorems for the subsampling of sequences are derived by direct use of the digital-filter-bank framework. These results are related to the theory of perfect reconstruction in maximally decimated digital-filter-bank systems. One of the theorems pertains to the subsampling of a sequence and its first few differences and its subsequent stable reconstruction at finite cost with no error. The reconstruction filters turn out to be multiplierless and of the FIR (finite impulse response) type. These ideas are extended to the case of two-dimensional signals by use of a Kronecker formalism. The subsampling of bandlimited sequences is also considered. A sequence x(n ) with a Fourier transform vanishes for |ω|&ges;Lπ/M, where L and M are integers with L<M, can in principle be represented by reducing the data rate by the amount M/L. The digital polyphase framework is used as a convenient tool for the derivation as well as mechanization of the sampling theorem