The Ethical and Practical Problems of Anthropomorphising AI
Quick Look
Treating AI systems with human emotions or consciousness, known as anthropomorphizing, poses ethical and practical problems by obscuring their true nature and limitations as machines, despite their processing power.
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Why It Matters
Anthropomorphising artificial intelligence by attributing human emotions, intentions, or consciousness to AI systems is identified as both an ethical and practical problem.
Anthropomorphising artificial intelligence – that is, treating AI systems as though they possess human emotions, intentions, consciousness or moral judgment – is both an ethical and a practical problem. While attributing human qualities to AI systems may make interactions more approachable, it also risks clouding users’ perceptions of the technology’s true nature and limitations.
The vocabulary choice has elevated AI systems to some form of intelligence on a par with, or even surpassing, human intelligence. It is true that in some cases, their processing powers and prowess surpass those of humans – but they also fail spectacularly because they are only machines.
Since the industrial revolution, it has been accepted that machines can be more efficient than humans at certain tasks. But we did not refer to machinery as teammates back then; neither should we now with AI systems.
Text-based generative AI systems are trained on vast amounts of texts. Given the word “thank”, it can statistically calculate the extremely high probability of the next word being “you”, and that is what it generates. Similarly, if asked to finish the sentence “the cat sat on the”, the most probable answer would be “mat”.
Open Questions
- How can public perception of AI be accurately shaped?
- What vocabulary should be used for AI systems?
