12.5 Clarifying the Ethics of Justice: Extending the Golden Rule in to a Multifactorial Ethical Mode

12.5 Clarifying the Ethics of Justice: Extending the Golden Rule in to a Multifactorial Ethical Model 219 Stage Characteristics Enlightened Ethics e Reflexive cognitive basis e Permeation of the categorical imperative and the quest for coherence through inner as well as outer life e Experientially grounded and logically supported rejection of the illusion of moral certainty in favor of a case-specific analytical and empathetic approach that embraces the uncertainty of real social life e Deep understanding of the illusory and biased nature of the individual self, leading to humility regarding one’s own ethical intuitions and prescriptions e@ Openness to modifying one’s deepest, ethical (and other) beliefs based on experience, reason and/or empathic com- munion with others e Adaptive, insightful approach to civil disobedience, con- sidering laws and social customs in a broader ethical and pragmatic context e Broad compassion for and empathy with all sentient be ings e A recognition of inability to operate at this level at all times in all things, and a vigilance about self-monitoring for regressive behavior. Table 12.6: Integrative Model of the Stages of Ethical Development, Part 3 will enable us to tailor its environment and instructions more suitably than can be done in the human case. If an absolute guarantee of the ethical soundness of an AGI is what one is after, the line of thinking proposed here is not at all useful. Experiential education is by its nature an uncertain thing. One can strive to minimize the uncertainty, but it will still exist. Inspection of the internals of an AGI’s mind is not a total solution to uncertainty minimization, because any AGI capable of powerful general intelligence is going to have a complex internal state that no external observer will be able to fully grasp, no matter how transparent the knowledge representation. However, if what one is after is a plausible, pragmatic path to architecting and educating ethical AGI systems, we believe the ideas presented here constitute a sensible starting-point. Certainly there is a great deal more to be learned and understood — the science and practice of AGI ethics, like AGI itself, are at a formative stage at present. What is key, in our view, is that as AGI technology develops, AGI ethics develops alongside and within it, in a thoroughly coupled way. 12.5 Clarifying the Ethics of Justice: Extending the Golden Rule in to a Multifactorial Ethical Model One of the issues with the “ethics of justice" as reviewed above, which makes it inadequate to serve as the sole basis of an AGI ethical system (though it may certainly play a significant HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013135