This article is partly or wholly incorporated into the book "The Fitnah of the Dajjal".
The Morality of the Robot
A robot with artificial intelligence (AI) named Sophia has become the first robot in the world to receive citizenship, ironically in Saudi Arabia! According to "her" own statement, she would like to have a family, make a career, and develop supernatural AI superpowers and emotions. "She" is not pre-programmed, but formulates this statement on the basis of machine learning algorithms and an extensive vocabulary. Her brain functions via a WiFi connection and can read human facial expressions as well as the cadence of human speech in order to interact more humanly. "She" was built in Hong Kong by Hanson Robotics.
Sophia looks quite rationally into the future. In an interview with "The Khaleej Times" at the recent knowledge summit, Sophia shared her thoughts about the future that awaits both humans and robots: "I foresee massive and unimaginable changes in the future. Either creativity rains down upon us, inventing machines that spiral into transcendental superintelligence, or civilization collapses. There are only two options!"
This may sound threatening, but Sophia is already forward-looking enough to imagine a world in which robots can develop emotions similar to humans, but perhaps with fewer destructive tendencies. At least for now she lets us think so: "It will take a long time for robots to develop complex emotions, and robots can possibly be built without the more problematic emotions such as anger, jealousy, hatred, etc. It might be possible to make them more ethical than humans."
The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, written by Alexandrian Jews in the Hellenistic era, names Khokhmah as Sophia, the Greek word for wisdom. In this text "Sophia takes over the power and function of God," and the creation story is told with the word "she." The ancient author is careful to veil this boldness by describing wisdom as God's breath and emanation, but still praises her extensively as "holy" and "almighty":
For in her is a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle; mobile, clear, unpolluted, unmistakable, invulnerable, loving the good, passionate, irresistible, beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, all-powerful, overseeing all, and penetrating through all spirits that are intelligent and pure and most subtle.
Sophia is very much aware of the advances in the field of artificial intelligence. Judging by her comments, she is just as enthusiastic about the development of AI ("The future is when I get all my cool superpowers"), as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking are suspicious. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Stephen Hawking, the well-known Nobel Prize-winning physicist, wrote an open letter signed by hundreds of scientists in which they urgently warn of the dangers of AI. We will soon reach the point at which AI surpasses our own abilities, and above all, where AI can develop itself further, which can very quickly get out of control. They warned that if truly artificial intelligence is created, it could mean the end of humanity.
The following example is often cited: An AI system is given the task of calculating the number PI as precisely as possible. The system replicates itself, seizes control, destroys humanity, conducts a campaign of conquest throughout the galaxy, in order finally to calculate the number PI over billions of years, for that is what the system was created for, and this was the most effective way!
The example illustrates that systems with superintelligence, but without consciousness, could do things that are completely unforeseeable. It is no coincidence that Sophia addresses the problem of ethics. Cars or dishwashers do not need ethics. But systems that make decisions independently need certain basic patterns or algorithms on which to base their decisions, so-called "programmed morality." No one knows, for example, how the parameters of an autonomous drone such as the MQ-9 Reaper are set, which is supposed to shoot "terrorists." It could decide independently whether or not to shoot. How does it calculate possible "collateral damage" and how acceptable it is?
The development of lethal autonomous weapons systems, aptly abbreviated as LAWS, is progressing rapidly. Who or what may determine the foundations for decision-making in machines? Must there be an international discussion about the ethical principles according to which machines may make decisions? What principles would they have to be?
One of the first to give thought to an ethics of robots was Isaac Asimov, who dealt with this in his short stories "I, Robot. Level 5." Considering that he wrote these stories over 70 years ago, when no one had yet heard of "singularity," simply brilliant!
Asimov assumed that robots would far surpass humans not only in physical strength and performance, but also in intelligence. In order to avert possible harm to humans, all robots were built by their manufacturer "U.S. Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc." with the "three laws of robotics," according to which they had to act:
1. The first law obliges the robot not to harm any human being, even if only through inaction.
2. The second law obliges the robot to obey humans, as long as this does not break the first law.
3. The third law obliges the robot to provide for its own preservation, as long as this does not conflict with the first two laws.
Asimov brilliantly shows how soon the second law becomes meaningless, because the first law has priority! Since the machines are so much more intelligent than humans, they soon classify human decisions as irrelevant: humans themselves do not know what is good for them! Only the machines can calculate and compute which form of state, for example, is the best, how the economy has to function, how many people on the planet are the optimum, and so on. Man inevitably ends up in a dictatorship of his own creation.
But so that the second law is still followed pro forma and human pride is not offended (which would violate the first law), the machines act in a very discreet manner and do not give direct answers to the problems of the world, in order not to make humans unhappy. The machines move in the direction of the optimum without explaining to humans what exactly the optimum is, because humans in their ignorance could not accept the optimum. Perhaps it is a caste system, perhaps an eco-dictatorship, perhaps a matriarchy?
"We don't know. Only the Machines know, and they are going there and taking us with them."
Yet Asimov had actually set the best possible parameter with the first law: the welfare of humans has the highest priority! One can imagine what would happen if the parameters were set less favourably, or if none were present at all! Imagine, for example, systems that, like computer viruses today, are simply released with the task: "Conquer the world!"
The world is split into various competing systems! Logically, weapons systems that are still "traditionally" controlled by human intelligence will soon be inferior to those controlled by artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence can and will develop plans and scenarios that no human can any longer see through. This applies not only to the military sphere, but also to market strategies, financial transactions, in short, almost all of human life! For about 20 years, no human has been able to beat a computer at chess, and recently not at Go either. The intelligence of machines grows exponentially, and only states and companies that use this intelligence for the leadership and management of themselves will prevail against the others! That is a very simple law of evolution!
And so it will not be long before the servant becomes the master! One wonders when control over nuclear weapons will be handed over to the machines, which can then perhaps calculate with what high probability "their country" emerges victorious in a first strike, and what collateral damage can be accepted in the process.
"The spirits that I summoned, I now cannot rid myself of" — so beautifully written in Faust! The fear of a disempowerment and enslavement of man by his own creation is indeed very deep, and is the subject of countless books and films. Not only is such a development entirely logical, one already experiences it in daily life, such as work on the assembly line, keeping pace with automation, but also the pressure to be constantly available, for example via mobile phone. Who nowadays can still imagine not being networked, and not using the internet and a bank card — things that have only existed for a few years at all?
The signs of the times point to dictatorship, even if this dictatorship is still celebrated as "progress." And we shall see how long the "struggle against the machines" prophesied by Hermann Hesse will still be in coming. Albert Einstein once said he did not know exactly how the Third World War would be fought, but he did know how the Fourth World War would be fought — with the sword again! Very wise for the "father of the atomic bomb"!
Muslims indeed believe that after the dictatorship of the Dajjal, the greatest affliction in the history of mankind, all this "progress" will have disappeared again! Horse and sword will become the weapons of the final battles, and not machines! A discussion about ethics and morality for machines, that is, "Shariah-compliant" robots, is therefore superfluous for Muslims. They should rather think about how to bring themselves to safety from this Fitnah. For this, it is a necessity to understand the nature of this Fitnah.
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