The Quest for an AI Ethics: Between Benevolence and Greed

AI systems, the ultimate form of technological sophistication, are already part of human reality, embedded in the interfaces we interact with daily, acting in a human-like way in different scenarios, co-acting with human agents at the workplace, improving human performance or efficiently replacing it. They have lost the tools’ typical instrumental character and by gaining autonomy have become agents. This profound ontological shift, that will ultimately lead to a distinct civilizational framework in a few decades, calls for an Existence- Centered Ethical framework, where not just human beings, but all the other species and the very planet are centered-staged. According to Jones (1984), the grounding stone of this new technological civilization's ethics is the principle of responsibility, embodying the “command of caution” that should always remind us that if “we still know too little” we should study all the possible consequences before indulging into a disruptive technological enterprise. Consequently, the challenges and risks posed by the present technological revolution urge the cooperation between different stakeholders and economic/geopolitical regions. This appeal to a universal cooperation is present, for instance, in the initial calls for an ethical design of AI systems, as in the case of Ethically Alligned Design (2016, 2017). However this call for cooperation has rapidly given place to a framework of high competition. The fact that technological development has for long been an indicator of progress, economic strength and ultimately global dominance and power explains the fierce competition we are presently observing between states and/or economies, in the rush to lead a deep technological revolution.