“Plan harm for another and harm yourself most, the evil we hatch always comes home to roost”

Homer explains that striving for excellence in all aspects of life would enable one to act justly. Hesiod describes that the concept of justice is directly connected to peace and tranquility such that just rulers build flourishing societies while unjust leaders cause societies to fall. Solon suggests that social imbalances would lead to injustices and ultimately the collapse of societies. Socrates defines justice as one of the fundamental human virtues and therefore a state of the soul. According to Plato a just person is able to create balance among the three elements of their soul which are the desire, the spirit and the reason.

Researchers believe that the concept of justice as we know it goes back to the sixth century BC but one can argue that justice is as old as human being’s existence. Justice finds its meaning in regards to our interactions with our surroundings be it the natural resources or other human beings.
Justice is the pillar to uphold “the tent of existence”, it is the “cause of the well-being of the world” and “the protection of the nations”. Our lives as human beings depend on justice because it brings order and tranquility to societies.

“The light of men is justice; quench it not with the contrary winds of oppression and tyranny. The purpose of justice is the appearance of unity among people.”

Justice requires one to consider humanity as one single human body. Surely, if a member of this body is hurt or injured, the rest of the body will naturally suffer. Although we may seem as discrete individuals, in reality we are closely integrated and connected like the different limbs and organs of the human body. Viewed in this light, justice demands us to regard the welfare of the community as our own; therefore, any decision we make or any action we take, we must thoroughly and rigorously assess its impacts on the welfare of not only ourselves but other individuals and the community in large. Justice requires one to consider the rights of all the people regardless of their class, nationality, race, creed and beliefs.

With the aid of technology, now more than ever before, we are living in an interconnected society where the impacts of our actions, decisions and behaviors are visible and evident. For example, with the help of technology, one is able to record an act of kindness or an unjust act and share it with the world to see instantaneously. Something impossible previously, except for the person who was present to witness the occurrence of the event. This is of great importance, and demands both the user and the developer of a technology a significant amount of accountability. Technology is a tool that if developed and used justly, promotes human’s life and extends their capabilities. 

Imagine a robotic company which is given the opportunity to design robotic arms that would help the individuals with disability to facilitate their daily activities.

• How can such a company practice justice to make their technology accessible and affordable to all who are in need?
• What other entities are responsible for making such technologies accessible to those who need it?

“Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”

Many communities around the world are in need of basic necessities such as clean water, reliable electricity, sanitation and energy. However, we witness that every year so many resources around the globe are used to develop technologies that are either used for warfare and destruction or technologies that do not answer the immediate needs of our age, when such resources can be dedicated to developing capacity in the population to provide their  basic needs.

• As a tech developer how can you assess that the technology you are developing is addressing the important needs of humanity?
• As a tech user, how can you assess that the time and the money you are spending on technology is contributing to justice?

Justice requires one to investigate the reality with their own knowledge and understanding not merely following others. Because every human being is endowed with a unique set of capacities and talents that if utilized brings unique perspectives to the world and if not utilized the world will be deprived from it. We all have probably heard of the story of ‘The elephant in the dark room’, where an elephant was brought into a dark room to be exhibited. People in the dark room couldn’t see the exhibition, except by touching and feeling the elephant in the dark. One person touched the trunk and thought it was a water pipe, another felt the ear and said that it was a large fan, a different person touched the leg and thought it must be a pillar, another felt the back and believed it must be a throne. The message of the story is that everyone’s understanding of reality is bounded by their experience. We all have a piece of truth, and when all pieces are put together through collaboration and consultation, we can reach the whole truth collectively.

• How much do the technologies we use in our daily lives encourage us to investigate reality on our own?
• How much technology makes us to be a passive follower of other people’s beliefs, lifestyles and understanding?

“The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.”

Aristotle

Justice prevents one from crossing the limits of moderation in their thoughts and actions. We are living in the era of digital technologies where more and more human interactions from shopping, medicine, working to human social life are being replaced by virtual relationships, and as a result we are becoming more and more isolated. Although the positive impacts of digital technologies are indisputable, if the usage ‘overleaps the bounds of moderation’, they cause great harm and destruction to society.

• How does justice enable a developer and/or user of a technology to not go beyond the limits of moderation?
• How can wisdom regulate our usage or development of technology?

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Human beings exist to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization. Technology has made possible the interconnectedness of the world and this is evident in how the nations and people are interdependent.

Societies are being transformed by digital technologies, especially by artificial intelligence, that is rapidly changing how we live and work. But this transformation is troubling because these technologies haven’t always helped to grow societies and even worse the extremes of wealth and poverty are still apparent. New digital technologies are exacerbating inequality, and there is a lack of diversity among those who create the programs, and that is causing major harm for underprivileged people in our societies. When technology reflects biases in the real world, it leads to discrimination and unequal treatment in all areas of life, for example in the area of employment among others.

If Artificial Intelligence (AI) outruns the social and moral progress of man, it will cause great harm and threaten the survival of the human race. Changes in technology and in the way society is organized have made the tech ecosystem less and less diverse. Many believe that this technological change has contributed to increased prosperity. But, in many societies of the world, this change has contributed to increased poverty and has widened the gap between the rich and poor. AI has potentially contributed to economic inequality by disproportionally benefiting wealthy individuals and corporations. Job losses due to AI-driven automation are more likely to affect low-skilled workers, leading to a growing income gap and reduced opportunities for social mobility.

The concentration of AI development and ownership within a small number of individuals, large corporations and governments can exacerbate this inequality as they accumulate wealth and power while excluded societies and smaller businesses struggle to compete. Advances in AI have been impressive, leading to innovations such as driverless cars to human-like language models. However, guiding the trajectory of the technology is critical. Because of the choices that researchers and businesses have made so far, new digital technologies have created vast wealth for those owning and inventing them, while too often destroying opportunities for those in jobs vulnerable to being replaced. These inventions have generated good tech jobs in a handful of cities while much of the rest of the population has been left behind. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

A diverse community would be better equipped to anticipate, review, and spot bias and engage communities affected. This will require investments in education and opportunities focused on developing a diverse and inclusive pipeline of AI talent in under-represented communities through education and participation. AI systems can inadvertently perpetuate or amplify societal biases due to biased training data or algorithmic design. To minimize discrimination and ensure fairness, it is crucial to invest in the development of unbiased algorithms and diverse training data sets.

Instilling moral and ethical values in AI systems development presents a considerable challenge and therefore, eliminating bias and inequality is everyone’s responsibility. Biased AI technologies reduce people’s ability to participate in the economy and society. It reduces the potential of AI for society by encouraging mistrust and producing distorted results. Tech developers and users need to ensure that the AI systems deployed improve on human decision-making, and they have a responsibility to encourage progress on participatory research, development and standards that will reduce bias in AI.

The Remedy

A permanent solution to technological problems is elusive and distant at this present moment. All efforts at development, including those using technology, will have only temporary effect unless the basic problem of our age, the disunity of the peoples of the world, is first recognized, its fundamental cause understood, and its expression in individual and social behavior eliminated. The establishment of unity among peoples of all backgrounds is a paramount condition for the progress of all individuals and societies. The tech development process should employ technology first of all to fully reflect the fundamental organic oneness of humanity, by helping to abolish all prejudice and divisiveness, whether of class, creed, sex, race, or nationality.

We as agents of change

If correctly employed, AI technology can lead to the betterment of the human race, to the development of human qualities, abilities and to an understanding of the human mind. It has the potential to eradicate poverty, enrich humanity, and free it from the struggle for existence and it is through technology that we can understand the potential of existing resources and learn to develop this natural heritage for everyone and future generations. Unfortunately, technology can be perfect instruments of war, support the concentration and abuse of power, undermine social and cultural values, and endanger the existence of mankind. AI technology is not sufficient by itself to guarantee progress. It must be directed by noble aims and values of the society it is intended to serve.

To eliminate obstacles in the application and development of technology, individual developers and users must possess noble values and high aims. Then they will immediately see the priority needed for development and will want to apply their knowledge in service of humanity. Everyone should participate in the appropriate transfer of technology, contribute to innovative solutions, and naturally bring about the integration of morality into tech development.

Much of the difficulty in applying moral values to tech development has come from the failure to link technology with basic human values upon which each society is built. AI technologies cannot by themselves solve all human problems; they are tools to be used or abused depending on social, economic, and political factors. If sustainable tech development is to occur, moral values must be brought into consideration. Ensuring AI technology is free of bias will have to go beyond just a conversation on AI, it will require societal structures, discourses and educational systems to be shaped so as to reflect the unity and diversity of humanity.

Reflections

Increasing reliance on AI-driven communication and interactions could lead to diminished empathy, social skills, and human connections.
How can we maintain a balance between technology and human interaction and preserve the essence of our social nature?

Over Reliance on AI systems may lead to a loss of creativity, critical thinking skills, and human intuition.
How can we strike a balance between AI-assisted decision-making and human input in order to preserve our cognitive abilities?

Incidences involving interactions between people and AI technologies, raise a host of ethical questions.
What moral obligations do the developers have to prevent their product from harming a human life?
Who is responsible for the harm? The person using the technology? The company that created the technology? The designers of the AI system, or even the manufacturers of its onboard sensory equipment?

AI technology should be pursued to improve human life, and have as its conscious and ultimate goal the establishment of prosperity for the human race.

Why are these technologies failing to produce more economic growth in our societies? Why aren’t they creating more widespread prosperity?

The post The Need for Diversity in Artificial Intelligence Development appeared first on Choicest Fruit Blog.

How can technology be used to promote justice?

“The purpose of justice is the appearance of unity among men.”

Justice is a capacity which enables one to understand the reality through their own knowledge, and not blindly following others. Justice equips us to conduct ourselves towards others with fairness and compassion.

As a user or developer of a technology (or provider and receiver of a service), we are given an opportunity to heighten our sense of justice when creating or utilizing a technology with the awareness that our products and actions make a positive impact.

Imagine a robotic company which is given the opportunity to design robotic arms that would help the individuals with disability to facilitate their daily activities. How can such a company practice justice to make their technology accessible and affordable to all who are in need? When we are developing or using a technology, there are some questions we must try to find answers to: Who does the technology benefit? Does every member of the community benefit from the fruits of the human mind including access to technological innovations and the knowledge generated through it?

How can every technology support and enhance human values?

Technological innovations are tools designed and developed to improve and facilitate our everyday lives. But just like any other tool, technology can be utilized in a constructive or destructive manner. 

When a technology is developed and introduced to the society without considering human values and true aspirations, such a technology will prove to be disastrous and ultimately it can destroy the culture and the local values of the community. 

The building blocks of society are based on human connection and cooperation. However, most of the developed technologies such as social media, despite the connotation that it is a vehicle for socialization, far from it, it’s now a technology that is reducing human interactions and giving the users an illusion of connection while consuming their time, causing addiction and leaving the user drained and disconnected.

Therefore, as a developer or user of a technology, one should ask how the technology is supporting and enhancing community’s values and ideals? 

Do the adopted technologies answer the needs of the community?

Technologies are designed and developed to answer a specific need or solve a problem in society. Therefore, the crucial step before designing and developing a technology is to identify the needs of the community accurately and this is achieved through consultation and close collaboration with the population.

Take for example all the technologies developed to engineer and modify crops, as well as their food and pesticides, although in some cases helpful to improve the crops varieties, farmers particularly in the developing communities face more fundamental needs such as access to reliable irrigation, power systems and other technological tools that would increase their yield and are affordable and accessible. 

And so, before a technology is adopted, the community is entitled to ask themselves whether the technology answers their essential social needs and is prioritized correctly.

What forces drive our community to utilize these technologies?

Ideally, technologies are developed and utilized to build capacity in a community to reach their ideals and aspirations individually and collectively. 

Before adopting a technology, the community must examine the driving forces impelling them to utilize this technology. Are the forces organically emerging from within the community or are they external forces? Raising such awareness within the community will work as a control mechanism over the driving forces. 

For example, in today’s world consumerism is one of the main driving forces behind developing and utilizing different technologies which has created a false idea of what development looks like. There is this image generally held that development means having the latest and sophisticated technologies without considering the spiritual and ethical implications of such developmental approaches. 

As a developer or user of a technology one should examine and analyze the driving forces behind the technological developments in order to ensure that the aim of the technology is to empower the community to reach their ideals and aspirations.

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Benefits are apparent when a new technology comes, however, it can also be easy to overlook its potential problems. Much of our modern lives are dominated by technology and while tech innovations and advancements have helped pave the way for a modernized healthcare industry, and a faster and easier way to communicate, but still humanity faces ethical dilemmas every day that haven’t come without serious questions. Paired with the undeniable benefits of widespread technology use are ethical concerns about the impacts of privacy, human behavior, the environment and spirituality.

The technology industry is experiencing startling changes that are profoundly altering the character of society. It is faced with major problems like socio-economic inequality, health and human impact, privacy, safety and security. Social impacts of technology are beginning to be a serious concern globally. Tech developers and tech users should be taking the center stage to address most of these concerns and to make sure that the technology development process reaches maturity.

The period of maturity in the life of a tree is the time of its fruit-bearing, likewise a human reaches maturity when the light of their intelligence attains its greatest power and development. There have been periods and stages in the collective life of humanity where at some point in time it was passing through its stage of childhood, at another its period of youth, but now it is entering the phase of maturity, the evidences of which are everywhere apparent. The things which were applicable to human needs during the early stages of development can neither meet nor satisfy the demands of this day.

Similarly with technology maturity, humanity must emerge from its state of limitation and preliminary training and become imbued with new virtues and powers, new moral standards, new capacities, and new approaches. Technological maturity must be achieved through the process of consultation. The primary means of achieving meaningful participation is through spiritually based indicators including trustworthiness, equity, justice and a humble posture of learning.

Although the field of ethics in technology is still evolving, it is time that it becomes a fundamental aspect of the technology development process. Through the consultation process and meaningful participation of the community in tech development, the framework of the ethical technology will grow organically and evolve over time as the society which it serves evolves.

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