To what extent can robots help us make better decisions?

Great Debates
1

Robots may or may not make things simpler in the future.

There are people who believe computers will be sooner or later used in various decision-making processes, such as human resources management for example, due to their ability to quickly process great amounts of relevant and consistent data so that they can come up with resolutions that will allow for better efficiency and productivity in any organization.

Suppose reliable AI has been created and one can use it to find solutions to complex matters that arise in businesses, government organizations or society as a whole.

Suppose you are in a position of authority and decide to employ such AI to assist you in handling social issues.

Suppose the AI indicates you can be more successful in influencing people and implementing programs if you resort to religion.

What will you do?

2

What I would do would depend upon the quality of the underlying algorithm, or rather my perception of the same.

3

No need to suppose.

Suppose AI tells you that you can more successfully influence people by lying. Lying to save the life of a friend? Probably. Lying to start a war (WMDs anyone)? Unlikely,

4

Like John Mace said.

One does not need to suppose. Here is a more recent example of that:

5

Thank you for your answers.

I know computers have been successfully used to identify solutions to complex problems.

But suppose you are in a position of authority and while employing such AI you are suggested to resort to religion in order to be more successful in influencing people and implementing your policies.
Would you take the advice and use religion as a tool?

And if your answer is no, would you be able to admit a limitation to AI or to using AI in handling complex social issues?

6

Not much, “Because throughout history every mystery ever solved has turned out to be… Not Magic.” - Tim Minchin.

A bit of a false dilema, because while I do know that Religion has helped science and development many times; in general, unfortunately, organized religion has been a big factor in delaying progress.

IMHO one big example is how thanks to torture and the faith of the day it was “known” for certain that witches were real, and so it was all the ugliness in life that them and the devil caused. People then had a very good explanation for the evil seen then. And very little incentive to change that condition for centuries as the “evidence” they had was “powerful”.

Only that nowadays we do know that virtually all witches were inocent of were mistaken on their beliefs, and so it was for the mainstream religion of then. But secular power was beginning to wrestle away that absolute control Religion had. If we had the AI that we are seeing now (and still made to be factually based) at the time of the Salem Witch trials, I do think that no one would had been executed or imprisoned there.

What I do think will happen is that the bad actors that twist religion into supporting ignorance will be there in enough numbers to complain that AI will ignore their peculiar version of what their faith tells them the world is. It can be seen happening already with dogmatic and wrong ideas, the followers of them are already complaining about how they would fare in a more factually based environment.

So yeah, never mind that the evidence shows that the climate change deniers are wrong or the anti-immigration people have also troubles with the evidence. Well, sucks to be them. The system Google is talking about relies less on opinions and more on the facts.

7

You regard AI as a trustworthy tool, which can handle certain complex issues faster and better than human beings, but if you were in a position of authority, you wouldn’t accept to use religion as a tool to implement your policies or influence people even if AI recommended it.

Objection One:
What if there were other people in positions of authority who did follow the AI recommendation and as a result they became more successful? How would you deal with this pressure?

Objection Two:
Events such as witch-hunting, the Inquisition and the like are not ineluctable or permanent features of Christianity. Plus, there are millions and millions of believers all over the world (India, China, etc.) whose religiosity does not take radical expressions.

Objection Three:
People in positions of authority often have to deal with ethical issues. Factual approaches are not always helpful here and the use of religion may sometimes ensure a quick and long-lasting success.

8

Have you tried killing all the poor?

9

Seems to me that you have the wish to get religion into the position it had before. No such luck, what has happened was noticed by people like James Burke, the cathedral or church was the biggest and most important building in the city. But then the secular government palace was. Followed now by the corporation or business building. So the authority of today could follow indeed more successful paths but as the past economic meltdown showed a lot of warnings were ignored because for a while those successful paths (like the housing Bubble) did make money to a lot of people. But they were following a mirage. What I think is that AI is a tool. And humans will have to be careful on what we will use to make that tool better.

I think the problem here is that you think that is an objection to my point. In reality it is part of why I`m a cautious optimist. As my point of view is more humanistic the task of the one that does not follow mainstream religions is not to seek to eliminate them. But to always keep vigilance that believers remain benevolent. As in the case of Salem the secular government was the force that made them so. I’m aware of how secular governments in Europe sometimes made things worse, but the improvements seen point to organized religion to be less of a factor going forward.

Quick, maybe. Long lasting… that smells like stopping progress by punishing many people unnecessarily. One only needs to remember how we kept the gay community in constant fear until many realized how many facts were wilfully ignored thanks to organized religion to keep the fear going.

10

If that were the ONLY solution offered, it might be indicative of a limitation on any kind of intelligence to implement the policy in question. AI, of course, needs to be tempered with human values. Pure logic might offer up solutions that are incompatible with those values.

11

It seems to me the question in the OP is more of an ethical one then a criticism of belief in AI. In theory prior to the announcement of the AI you were living at an honest level of religiousness the AIR is now telling you that if you lie you will be able to gain power. So really the question is will you lie to gain power which is a much less interesting OP.

12

I admit I may not have enunciated the OP very clearly, and that is because I had more than one issue in mind. I’ll try to restate it although I’m not sure I’ll do a much better job.

But before I do, I want to point out I do not endorse any type of theocracy, and I find politicians’ lies and hypocrisy quite disturbing.

I live in Eastern Europe and this question does not refer solely to the United States. It is hypothetical in the sense that AI is not used in decision-making processes on a global scale, we’re not all people in positions of authority and we don’t use AI to influence people or implement policies.

The OP consists of the following question:
What would you do if you were in a position of authority and the AI you use to see how you can be more successful recommended that you resort to religion?

The question includes three assumptions: (1) you have access to AI that can assist you in decision-making processes involving social issues; (2) you are in a position of authority; and (3) the AI suggests you should resort to religion to increase your chances to influence people and implement your policies.

My answer to this question is that I wouldn’t. I would not resort to religion just because some AI suggested I could increase my chances to influence people and implement policies by preaching religious tenets.

Above all, I would be circumspect about allowing AI to assist me in decision-making processes involving social issues. I don’t say I wouldn’t use it at all, but I’d be really cautious. For instance, AI can be very useful in handling large amounts of data and analyzing them to identify objects (including individuals and phenomena) that fall into trends/patterns or out of them. But to decide on my political approach based on AI’s suggestion, that in my opinion would be unthinkable.

However, I think we’re nearing the day when politicians will be increasingly assisted by AI. Virtually every successful politician I know of makes use of more or less shrewd advisors who offer paid-for guidance to their patron regardless of their own personal attitudes and values. The cynicism of the situation where a politician employed AI would be even greater with the added advantage that the politician wouldn’t even feel it.

Few people in authority refrain from lying or being hypocritical, especially when it comes to issues tangent to religious beliefs. Among politicians, there is already a widespread predisposition to invoke or allude to God or religious beliefs. I think they would be glad if they were endowed with specialized software that could teach them how to perfect the skill of influencing people and implementing their policies by means of religion.

In conclusion, I think the advent of AI assisting people in positions of authority does not augur a bright future for ordinary citizens. AI can be more machiavellian than Machiavelli himself and it will only enable politicians to polish their demagoguery and pursue their own goals at the expense of the ordinary citizen, who will find himself manipulated and subjected to policies that do not benefit him to a greater extent than today.

13

Define “resort to religion”? Are we talking human sacrifice? Are we talking Spanish Inquisition (no one expected that, btw)? What exactly are we talking about?

14

Along those lines, who does “resort to religion” and who doesn’t “resort to religion”?

Do atheists say, the concepts voiced in the Christian bible have no place in any intellectual discourse? Certainly, some do. Many people however, acknowledge the value of codified moral codes that have been part of human culture for centuries. In the sculptures that surround the US Supreme Court Building, Mohammad takes his place along with Moses, and Confucius. United States Supreme Court Building - Wikipedia What computer program is needed to see the effects of their ancient religious work in our current legal and political system?

15

First, as others have said, any organization not using data to influence decision making is antiquated. WalMart does it. Obama did it during elections. And I personally was involved with this at my job. That is different from AI, and even more different from an AI recommending some new strategy.
As for religion, it would seem that this would be an ethical question, not a data question. For an example of using religion to influence people, check out the first three Foundation books. It is not like this is a new idea.

16

This is a discussion among some popular culture AI speakers (I don’t want to say researchers, because the people who speak out about AI usually are not the same as the people actually researching and building it).

Nick Bostrom talked about what would happen if we gave an AI the goal of ‘make everyone happy’. Well, you can probably do that by inserting electrodes into our brains to set off the reward centers and keep them turned on. It isn’t exactly an elegant solution, but it’ll work. Stuff like that needs to be debated.

I’d recommend you read Bostrom’s book.

17

I’ve never claimed that.

Religious direct and indirect references are ubiquitous in political discourse, with significant differences though between various countries and parties. I’ve only had time to pick several quick examples:

David Cameron said he had experienced the “healing power” of religion in his own life and insisted that Christianity could transform the “spiritual, physical, and moral” state of Britain and even the world.

Vladimir Putin has called for the Church to play a larger role in citizens’ social lives, better religion classes in schools, and television programs emphasizing religious values.

Victor Orban (Hungary’s Prime Minister):“I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country.”

Donald Trump: “I think God has blessed us.”

18

While that is true, what many do report is that (as in Trump’s case) what you see there is called pandering. An appeasement maneuver that IMHO an AI would also reach.

Interestingly I do think that that is one way that leaders would deal also with your hypothetical. It is only if suddenly creationism is teach in schools or an official religion is set and others prosecuted is when I would worry about the religion item regarding AI.

19

Is there one US president in the last 50 years who has not said something along those lines? It’s SOP for presidents to ends speeches with: And God bless the United States of America!!

If that’s what you mean by “use religion”, then we’re already doing it and didn’t need a computer to tell us it was a useful thing to do.

20

Is this what your thread is actually about? You’re afraid of people getting fired because “the AI said so”? Now you’re trying to come up with a “Aha! See? We shouldn’t rely on AI for efficiency and productivity when it comes to human resources management” response?