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RE: On ethics in decentralized systems
Hi dana-edwards, thank you for the explanations and I appreciate your depth of knowledge on these issues. Admittedly, I am not an expert on ethics, and so maybe I could have titled the article differently. My point is simply this: as we unleash large-scale unstoppable systems onto the world, there will be unforeseen consequences. It would really serve the community well to think about them ahead of time. To be clear, I am not advocating for a litigious or oversight approach (necessarily), I am simply echoing Alex in a call for discussion.
Jbrukh my argument is basically that the technology already is unleashed. It's already being used for it's worst purposes. Drones are used to kill people in war. Various countries have cyber militias willing to unleash advanced persistent threats. All of us are potential victims of espionage. So when it comes to cyberspace the attackers already have the advantage and always had it, and the advanced persistent threat is the kind of attacker to be most concerned about because they aren't doing it for the money, they may be state funded, they may be doing it for a cause such as to help some side of a war.
What we can do is help encourage the use of certain technologies which at the time don't get put to beneficial use by regular people. Intelligent agents are not a new technology and have existed theoretically for a long time. Blockchain technology is new but any bad guy could unleash entirely new weaponized blockchains funded by or sponsored by their state.
That being said it is true that when you empower regular people you risk that some percentage will misuse the power. It is ultimately only a situation which can be solved by empowering the people who care about security in cyberspace but to have security does not in my opinion require crippling cyberspace or diminishing liberty. I believe you can have both security and liberty in cyberspace if you get the design right.
As far as intelligent agents go, with these intelligent agents many lives will be saved. The entire economy may even be saved by intelligent agents who may in fact be what powers the automated economy going into the future. It is important that any individual will be able to farm these intelligent agents, it is important that any individual will have access to AI, to automation, and while you could say there is a risk that some agents will be amoral economic agents it does not mean we have to design them to be that way.
The way I see it, your intelligent agents are the digital you. It's an expression of your will and intent, and it will act on your behalf exactly as you would want. If you're an amoral person then perhaps you would want an amoral agent but most people looking at the consequences can quickly figure out that while that approach might mean more money in the short term it is very costly long term.
People make the mistake sometimes of believing all wealth can be measured in net worth or in money. People make the mistake of believing that having money is equivalent to having power. Neither are true. To have wealth you must have resources, and in specific you must have assets. Your reputation in a community is an asset, your human capital are assets, and these assets are determined based on how other people think of you at any given time. If a person truly is trying to be wealthy in a world where there are intelligent moral agents then they would probably be the most wealthy if they have the intelligent agents which are the most moral as well as economic efficiency.
I may have some papers on this subject which I can post here to continue the discussion. It's an important discussion and the topic of intelligent agents is very important for future morality and ethics. Personally I think intelligent agents will be able to improve ethics dramatically because most human beings aren't particularly good at thinking about ethics as it pertains to hundreds of people, thousands of people, millions of people, because they can't get past Dunbar's number and other biological limits which limit people to being able to only think about the people they personally know. The intelligent agents will be able to make information based on knowledge of millions of people, possibly intimate big data type knowledge, big ethics will result from big data.