[SIGCIS-Members] Some suggestions on the early history of the ethics of AI

[Kevin Driscoll]

Dear Debbie,

I've found that some familiarity with the ELIZA chatbot is helpful for
students learning about the history of AI. ELIZA appears often in later
literature and provides a generative starting point for thinking about the
social and political consequences of AI in society.

In a media studies course about programming, I ask students to compare
passages from Weizenbaum's 1966 paper and 1976 follow-up book:
- Weizenbaum, J. (1966). ELIZA: A Computer Program for the Study of Natural
Language Communication Between Man and Machine. Commun. ACM, 9(1), 36–45.
https://doi.org/10.1145/365153.365168
- Weizenbaum, J. (1976). Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to
Calculation (1st edition). San Francisco: W H Freeman & Co.

There are also lots of ELIZAs living on the web for them to play with, e.g.:
- http://www.masswerk.at/elizabot/
-
https://www.smallsurething.com/implementing-the-famous-eliza-chatbot-in-python/

Plus, the racist meltdown of Microsoft's Tay in 2016 offers an extension
into the present:
- https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist

Best of luck to you and your student!

Kevin Driscoll
University of Virginia



On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 3:55 AM, Alberts, Gerard <g.alberts at uva.nl> wrote:

> Dear Deborah,
> The crucial book is Hubert L. Dreyfus, *What computers still can't do. A
> critique of artificial reason* (MIT, 1972. 1992). *The original What
> computers can't do*, is basically a philosophical argumentation. The
> revised edition has an ample introduction offering a most readible
> historical view of the debate as it evolved.
> AI from its very inception in the 1950s has been accompanied with debates.
> These debates may have been different in Europe from the US; just like the
> automation debate in the 1950s was predominantly a socio-economic debate in
> the US, and when it landed in Europe it had turned into a cultural debate.
> Our colleague Dick van Lente (University of Rotterdam) published on these
> issues.
>
> I do read Dreyfus with graduate students. For undergraduates I find J.
> David Bolter, *Turing's man* (from 1984!) still very readible. To
> students in CS or AI it will always serve as an eye-opener to the
> worldviews implicit in their discipline - which to me is the key element of
> an ethical reflection course.
> Kind regards,
> Gerard Alberts, University of Amsterdam
>
> ------------------------------
> *Van:* Members [members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org] namens Deborah Douglas [
> ddouglas at mit.edu]
> *Verzonden:* maandag 23 april 2018 3:21
> *Aan:* members
> *Onderwerp:* [SIGCIS-Members] Some suggestions on the early history of
> the ethics of AI
>
> I am appealing to the collective for some quick recommendations to help
> one of my undergraduates interested in the early history of ethics and
> artificial intelligence.  What sorts of articles or books have others used
> in their classes with undergraduates to help them understand the key issues
> and concerns?
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Debbie Douglas
>
> *Deborah G. Douglas, PhD* • Director of Collections and Curator of
> Science and Technology, MIT Museum, Room N51-209 • 265 Massachusetts Avenue
> • Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 • http://web.mit.edu/museum  •
> http://museum.mit.edu/150 • ddouglas at mit.edu •  617-253-1766 phone  •
>  617-253-8994 fax
>
>
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