The Virtuous Machine - Old Ethics for New Technology?

Abstract

Modern AI and robotic systems are characterized by a high and ever-increasing level of autonomy. At the same time, their applications in fields such as autonomous driving, service robotics and digital personal assistants move closer to humans. From the combination of both developments emerges the field of AI ethics which recognizes that the actions of autonomous machines entail moral dimensions and tries to answer the question of how we can build moral machines. In this paper we argue for taking inspiration from Aristotelian virtue ethics by showing that it forms a suitable combination with modern AI due to its focus on learning from experience. We furthermore propose that imitation learning from moral exemplars, a central concept in virtue ethics, can solve the value alignment problem. Finally, we show that an intelligent system endowed with the virtues of temperance and friendship to humans would not pose a control problem as it would not have the desire for limitless self-improvement.