Report: Home Assistants with ‘Moral AI’ Could Call Police on Owners

Beautiful...I guess 1984 was just off by about 35 years.

...academics at the University of Bergen in Norway discussed the idea of a “moral A.I.” for smart home assistants, like the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod, during a conference. Moral A.I. would reportedly make home assistants have to “decide whether to report their owners for breaking the law,” or whether to stay silent.

This would let them to weigh-up whether to report illegal activity to the police, effectively putting millions of people under constant surveillance,” the Daily Mail explained, adding that Dr. Marija Slavkovik, who led the research, “suggested that digital assistants should possess an ethical awareness that simultaneously represents both the owner and the authorities — or, in the case of a minor, their parents.” “Devices would then have an internal ‘discussion’ about suspect behaviour, weighing up conflicting demands between the law and personal freedoms, before arriving at the ‘best’ course of action,” the Mail noted.

Well, of course that's the direction this thing is going (and why anyone would have one of these devices in their home is completely beyond me).

Let's go over some of the ramifications of this you will be reading about in near-future newspaper articles, or watching the reports about on CNN and MSNBC...

1) Johnny knocks his sister Jane off of the couch and she gets hurt. Father takes Johnny over his knee and gives him three spanks, before sending him to his room. Alexa makes a call...Daddy is arrested and charged with assault, kids are all put in foster homes.

2) Wife tells husband that the smoke alarm isn't working in the kitchen. Husband says they are out of batteries, but he will go and buy some tomorrow. Fire Department shows up at the door with the Police and they charge the Husband with criminal negligence, for failing to keep an operating smoke alarm on all three levels of their home.

3) Google Home listens in on all of the dinner time conversation around the table for a couple of months, then its "Moral AI" determines that the parents are not feeding the kids a diet that is in accordance with the National Food Guide...so they are endangering the children. CPS, shows up takes the kids away...

There is [already] an ethical conflict between people in one family, let alone between people and manufacturer, or shareholders of the manufacturer and programmers… If we want to avoid Orwellian outcomes it’s important that all stakeholders are identified and have a say, including when machines shouldn’t be able to listen in. Right now only the manufacturer decides.

Orwelian outcomes indeed...they are on their way (if not here already).

Home Assistants Are Not Your Friends

a reply to: mobiusmale

This will be the excuse for when it comes out that these devices do infact listen and send the data back to the companies data centres

a reply to: mobiusmale

Not that I needed more reasons to never buy one of those things or to ever enable the google assistant on my phone, but damn...nope....just nope.

Not that I needed yet another reason not to buy or trust these things, but good to know

Anyone who thinks big tech is anything but in bed with government is fooling themselves

Anything these things pick up can and will be used against you. And since it is not the government collecting the data, the protections against unwarranted search and seizure don't apply

End this threat by ending these tech monopolies and passing extremely strict laws (with severe prison time or worse) for those who violate our inherent right to be left alone, to exist in a private-by-default state and to remain free from self-incrimination (by ourselves or any device we purchase)

An example is ALL "smart" devices but especially your cellular phones (nothing smart about using these devices, they are spy tools period)

An older couple I know were house-sitting their son's house when a knock came on the door, early evening. It was a deputy and he wondered if everything was OK. They said yes, no disturbance here, and the deputy left. About an hour later another knocked on the door, and he said they had been notified by computer of a disturbance at the house.

It turned out it was Alexa or something like it. They were not aware of it. All's well that ends well.

Imagine if they had been black.

There is nothing wrong with this situation.

No one is required to own one of these. If you buy one and have it in your home, you are signing up for surveillance, it is not being forced on you.

originally posted by: Archivalist
There is nothing wrong with this situation.

No one is required to own one of these. If you buy one and have it in your home, you are signing up for surveillance, it is not being forced on you.

That is true.. but not many people think that way. At one time I thought it would be hard to build a better monitoring tool than Facebook and Google. Then these things came along and they are flying off the shelves...

a reply to: mobiusmale

Those sweet liberals and their love for authoritarian totalitarism.

originally posted by: Archivalist
There is nothing wrong with this situation.

No one is required to own one of these. If you buy one and have it in your home, you are signing up for surveillance, it is not being forced on you.

Yet.
One day refusing to have one will mean that you are up to no good .

originally posted by: Hecate666

originally posted by: Archivalist
There is nothing wrong with this situation.

No one is required to own one of these. If you buy one and have it in your home, you are signing up for surveillance, it is not being forced on you.

Yet.
One day refusing to have one will mean that you are up to no good .

or it will become a required device that a student will need in order to do their school work. and then you will have work places requiring them, so that they can easily get ahold of you at home. perhaps even wanting to use them to give their employees some work related training or other work related function.