(‘Philisophy and tech’ is a series of posts in which I discuss very briefly philosophical issues I encounter reading stuff about technology)
Last week Google published ethical principles guiding its AI development and research. Richard Waters of the Financial Times quotes AI-professor Stuart Russell at the University of California, Berkeley, who says that Google has to think about the output of their algorithms as a kind of ‘speech act’. What he means is that when people use their AI-enabled tools, such as searching texts or images, the responses generated influence the way people look at the world and ultimately change their behavior and convictions. It’s not about ‘mere talking’ but about doing stuff in the real world. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a lot about speech acts. An interesting take on Google’s new AI ethics can be found at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Also watch professor Russell’s talk at TED2017.
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