Deontology

Deontology takes a very different view about ethics from consequentialism. At a very high level, while consequentialism examines the effect of the action, it does not examine the ethical rightness of the action itself.  Deontology examines the “rightness” of the actions and holds that some actions will never be ethical/moral/right no matter what their outcome is.

How does this relate to AI? This approach to creating ethical AI would hold that some AI systems could not ethical if their actions are unethical or if the actions needed to build the systems are unethical, no matter the outcomes of the system.

As with the other theories this week, I’m keeping this writeup short. Please read the formal writeup below and we will discuss all of the theories in class.