Formalization of Ethical Decision Making

Abstract

As automation in robotics and artificial intelligence is increasing, we will need to automate a growing amount of ethical decision making. However, ethical decision-making raises novel challenges for designers, engineers, ethicists, and policymakers, who will have to explore new ways to realize this task. For example, engineers building wearable robots should take into consideration privacy aspects and their different context-based scenarios when programming the decision-making procedures. This in turn requires ethical input in order to respect norms concerning privacy and informed consent. The presented work focuses on the development and formalization of models that aim at ensuring a correct ethical behavior of artificial intelligent agents, in a provable way, extending and implementing a logic-based proving calculus. This leads to a formal theoretical framework of moral competence that could be implemented in artificial intelligent systems in order to best formalize certain parameters of ethical decision-making to ensure safety and justified trust.

The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: Sociopolitical and Legal Dimensions

“…The call for comprehensive regulatory frameworks found in this study is echoed by Begishev, Khisamova, & Gaifutdinov (2019), who advocate for international cooperation to address the transnational nature of AI technologies (Begishev et al, 2019). This study's emphasis on the integration of ethical decision-making into legal frameworks further aligns with Almpani, Stefaneas, & Frangos (2023), who propose a formalization of ethical decision-making in healthcare, suggesting a pathway towards embedding ethical considerations within legal statutes to ensure AI's alignment with societal values (Almpani et al, 2023).…”

“…The challenges of attributing liability in cases where AI systems malfunction or cause harm are explored by O'Sullivan et al (2019), who highlight the complexity of establishing accountability mechanisms within existing legal structures (O'Sullivan et al, 2019). Furthermore, the integration of ethical decision-making in legal frameworks, as proposed by Almpani et al (2022Almpani et al ( , 2023, suggests a formalized approach to ensuring that AI systems adhere to ethical standards and legal requirements (Almpani et al, 2022(Almpani et al, , 2023. The discourse on AI ethics is further enriched by considerations of human rights and the imperative to align AI development with the protection and promotion of fundamental rights.…”