The Problem with 'Friendly' Artificial Intelligence

Note: This essay is a response to "Machine Morality and Human Responsibility." The essays in this symposium were first delivered at the second conference in the series "Stuck with Virtue." Sponsored by the University of Chicago's New Science of Virtues project, this conference examined the various Cartesian, Lockean, and Darwinian premises that help shape and inform the ethics and ethos of modern technological democracy. Held in April 2011 at Berry College in Rome, Georgia, the conference featured four main speakers: Ronald Bailey, Charles T. Rubin, Patrick J. Deneen, and Robert P. Kraynak, with responses to Mr. Bailey by Benjamin Storey and to Professor Rubin by Adam Keiper (left, here joined by Ari N. Schulman). The symposium is introduced by Peter Augustine Lawler and Marc D. Guerra. Should we care about machine morality at all? Do the issues that Charles T. Rubin so ably raises merit scholarly time and public attention? Or are they just frivolities -- material suited for science fiction romps in books and movies but unworthy of serious consideration? This is a difficult question to answer readily.