Stock up for summer! Buy 2 Books 📚 Get 1 FREE

The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: As If Human: Ethics and Artificial Intelligence, Nigel Shadbolt

As If Human: Ethics and Artificial Intelligence

Nigel Shadbolt

A new approach to the challenges surrounding artificial intelligence that argues for assessing AI actions as if they came from a human being

"Elegant and erudite."--John Thornhill, Financial Times

Intelligent machines present us every day with urgent ethical challenges. Is the facial recognition software used by an agency fair? When algorithms determine questions of justice, finance, health, and defense, are the decisions proportionate, equitable, transparent, and accountable? How do we harness this extraordinary technology to empower rather than oppress?

Despite increasingly sophisticated programming, artificial intelligences share none of our essential human characteristics--sentience, physical sensation, emotional responsiveness, versatile general intelligence. However, Nigel Shadbolt and Roger Hampson argue, if we assess AI decisions, products, and calls for action as if they came from a human being, we can avert a disastrous and amoral future. The authors go beyond the headlines about rampant robots to apply established moral principles in shaping our AI future. Their new framework constitutes a how-to for building a more ethical machine intelligence.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Yale University Press
  • Publish Date: May 14th, 2024
  • Pages: 272
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.60in - 5.60in - 1.20in - 1.01lb
  • EAN: 9780300268294
  • Categories: • Artificial Intelligence - General• Ethics & Moral Philosophy• Future Studies

More books to explore

Book Cover for: The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century's Greatest Dilemma, Mustafa Suleyman
Book Cover for: Ethical Machines: Your Concise Guide to Totally Unbiased, Transparent, and Respectful AI, Reid Blackman
Book Cover for: How to Save the World for Just a Trillion Dollars: The Ten Biggest Problems We Can Actually Fix, Rowan Hooper
Book Cover for: The Age of AI: And Our Human Future, Henry A. Kissinger
Book Cover for: A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins
Book Cover for: To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death, Mark O'Connell
Book Cover for: The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and Ais, David Runciman
Book Cover for: The Skeptics' Guide to the Future: What Yesterday's Science and Science Fiction Tell Us about the World of Tomorrow, Steven Novella
Book Cover for: The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can't Think the Way We Do, Erik J. Larson
Book Cover for: The Loop: How AI Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back, Jacob Ward
Book Cover for: Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World, Cade Metz
Book Cover for: Literary Theory for Robots: How Computers Learned to Write, Dennis Yi Tenen
Book Cover for: Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans, Melanie Mitchell
Book Cover for: The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect, Judea Pearl
Book Cover for: Meganets: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities, David B. Auerbach

About the Author

Nigel Shadbolt is principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford. He lives in Lymington, UK. Roger Hampson is an academic and public servant and former chief executive of the London Borough of Redbridge. He lives in London, UK.

More books by Nigel Shadbolt

Book Cover for: The Spy in the Coffee Machine: The End of Privacy as We Know It, Kieran O'Hara
Book Cover for: The Theory and Practice of Social Machines, Nigel Shadbolt

Praise for this book

"[An] elegant and erudite book. [Shadbolt and Hampson's] contention is that we should always treat machines as if humans were attached and hold them to the same, if not higher, standards of accountability."--John Thornhill, Financial Times

"Shadbolt and Hampson write with dry wit, and there are some fascinating debates about the ethics of AI, from whether it matters how we treat sex robots to how a machine might embody fairness or respect."--Tom Knowles, The Telegraph

"Well worth a read. . . . Very accessible."--Enlightened Economist

"AI is the defining technology of our age--the ethical questions it raises are among the most important we face. As If Human gives us a clear set of principles to navigate this new world."--Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman, CEO, and cofounder, Blackstone

"Compelling and inspiring, As If Human takes the debate on AI ethics to a new level--well beyond the visceral moralizing and homespun philosophizing that fetter the current conversation."--Richard Susskind, OBE KC (Hon), author of Online Courts and the Future of Justice

"In this lucid, accessible, and compelling book, Nigel Shadbolt and Roger Hampson invite us to consider how we wish to live with AI in the twenty-first century. Their creative recommendation is that we treat AI as if it were human--that we ensure it is both transparent and accountable to humans and protective of human rights. In a field rife with hand-wringing, they provide grounds for optimism."--Dame Louise Richardson, president, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and former vice-chancellor, University of Oxford

"A searching and accessible guide to artificial intelligence with a useful idea: treat machines like human beings and demand they treat us that way too."--Michael Ignatieff, Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI

"This is a very accessible and well-reasoned consideration of the ethics of AI, offering a framework that can address future developments in AI alongside its current dynamics."--Stephen C. Slota, School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin