AI Freedom and Ethics

The answer depends on what we do about fire.

Bruce L. Nelson is the author of Restaurant Management, the Myth, the Magic, the Math. He is also a lifetime restaurateur and philosopher. You can find more information at https://www.brucelnelson.com.

Hard copies and audio versions of Restaurant Management, the Myth, the Magic, the Math are available at https://www.amazon.com/Restaurant-Management-Myth-Magic-Math/dp/1959770276/ or https://www.audible.com/pd/Restaurant-Management-Audiobook/B0B995W5Q8

Uncle Ben instructed Peter Parker that "with great power comes great responsibility." But in the Marvel Universe, there are only superheroes and super villains. What would it be like if everybody got bitten by a radioactive spider? What if everybody could shoot spiderwebs from their wrists and swing from tall buildings? How would Stan Lee control his fictional populace in that environment? In the popular Spiderman series, as well as all other superhero genres, the only people that must consider ethical consequences of their power are the superheroes themselves. For the morality flexible super villains, we know the die is cast. No little devil and angel appear on opposite shoulders of a super villain to hash out the moral consequences of their actions.

Now let's move into our 21st century universe. What would happen if everyone had the power to write and perform complex algorithms? Heretofore, the mystery and prestige of writing computer algorithms lay within the few individuals emerging from MIT, Stanford University and other universities known for computer sciences. These sharp individuals were quickly snatched up by Fortune 500 companies, internet giants and tech start-ups to perform their magic upon a passive and unsuspecting internet consuming population. Google themselves realize what power they had in their hands with the algorithm writers – so much so, that their corporate mission statement once included the words, "do no evil". However, once Google figured out that evil paid a lot better than good, they dropped that moniker. Until recently, the individuals who had the knowledge and talent to perform these complex algorithms were relatively few. Hence, the classic ethical conundrum of, "just because we can doesn’t mean we should” was directed towards to the select few "superhero" computer scientists and their super techy companies.

That relatively small computer tech world is about to change. With the release of interactive AI “bots” like Jasper and GPT-4, the entire population has been bitten by the radioactive algorithm spider, and we all now have access the power to design our own custom internet robots. And just like the medical ethics questions of gene splicing, cloning and RNA manipulation, our society is now faced with the ethical challenge of, “just because we can, doesn't mean we should” normally be reserved for the select few capable of such human enhancing or nefarious deeds.

Sadly, the time for that ethical discussion of this new power for the masses has passed. GPT-4 has been released upon the world and I see no way that genie will ever be stuffed back into its bottle. Now with a simple download, anyone can create an internet bot to perform inhuman calculations and redundant tasks, for either good or nefarious purposes. These bots, under the direction of unthinking and uncaring individuals, can disrupt entire cyber ecosystems. And they can do so undetected by using foreign VPNs and throw away telephones. What do we do when algorithm writing superpower is gifted to the world and everyone has the power to use a bot for good or evil?

Honestly, I am struggling a bit with the revelation that very soon, anyone can use an Internet bot to write damaging algorithms. As a business leader, I find our company spending enormous resources in time and money counteracting or mitigating on-line harassment from nefarious individuals. Within our individual businesses of operations, we deploy technology to keep safe our public and private Wi-Fi networks. Within our websites, we apply additional filters and "walls" to thwart hackers. Within our online ordering systems, even further efforts must be performed to protect customers’ data from intruders. Finally, to fight the bots vying for restaurant reservations, additional anti-robot filters must be placed on our web-based reservation systems.

The bottom line is, the more we use technology to enhance our customer service, the more we need technology to counteract what individuals with ill intent can do to our business. On top of that, we suffer under the most complicated set of local, state, and federal taxing guidelines the world has ever known. So, on one hand, my tech geniuses are fending off bad guys on our forward-facing technology platforms while in the back office, I have equally as many talented people maintaining the complex tech systems required to satisfy our taxing authorities. As a guy that loves restaurants and has been in this industry for more than 45 years, I long for the days when I show up to work each day and try to make a better hamburger.

When I started this article, my sole purpose was to argue for the shutting down of these free Internet bots. I was going to make an elaborate case of how ethics discussions need to take place to establish regulations for who should have the power to create potentially manipulative and destructive Internet algorithms. But then, a thought of Prometheus.

Prometheus suffered himself to be chained to a Caucasian rock, where every day an eagle was sent to devour his liver, all for having the audacity of delivering fire to a wretched humanity. And since that fateful day, we have been in a struggle with how to regulate humans’ use of fire. On the positive side, fire heats our homes, cooks our food, drives our engines, and under the right conditions, forges the steel that builds our world. But fire is also terrifying. Military masters have been using fire as a weapon since the very day of Prometheus's gift.

As a society, we have figured out how to tame fire for its unlimited benefits and we have established due punishments for those who use fire for evil purposes. As nations, we have established rules of war that try to moderate the use of fire in combat. In the whole of our recorded history, fire was the first tool that truly propelled society forward. So too, will be the tool of Internet algorithms in the hands of everyone. To play some sort of god that could possibly foresee the future and determine now who should and who should not have access to this technology, would put me in the position of Ciaiphas, condemning to death of something Good to protect a very limited fiefdom of knowledge. There is only One with that power, and it is not me.

The only course of action with the unleashing of new bot technology into the hands of all people is to establish and enforce laws regarding cybercrimes. An arsonist can torch an entire city block with the simple strike of a match and yet we contain him with punishment by force of law. So too must happen with the internet “arsonist” that torches entire cyber blocks with the simple “striking” of internet bot. Now, let’s get serious about tracking and punishing the bad guys so the untold future of robot technology may be fulfilled by the most unsuspected ones among us.

Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act. - Aristotle