My Digital FootPrint

This read describes the space between chaos and the abyss, where we find ourselves when we allow machines to make decisions without safeguarding collective criticism or realise they can change our minds.   ----- There is a reality that we are not forced to recognise our collective ethical and own moral bias without others. However, these biases are the basis of our decision-making, so asking a machine to " take an unelected position of trust " and make a decision on our collective behalf creates a space we should explore as we move from human criticism to machine control. Machines are making decisions.    Automation is incredibly powerful and useful, and we continue to learn to reduce bias in automated decision-making by exploring data sets and understanding the outcomes by testing for bias.  As we continue testing, iterating and learning about using past data for future decisions, we expose many of our human frailties and faults.   The decisions...

I explore ethics, morals and integrity in the context of decision-making. This piece explores the void between ethics and morals and why we need this place to exist because it allows us to explore the reason why unethical morals force us to new thinking. The difference in definition between Ethics and Morals Definition : Ethics are guiding principles of conduct of an individual or group. Definition : Morals are principles on which one’s judgments of right and wrong are based. Therefore an important difference between ethics and morals is that ethics are relatively uniform within a group, whereas morals are individual and heavily influenced by local culture and beliefs. How to change someone's mind is a super article from Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries at Insead.  It is important because if we want more people in the moral group, we need those with different ethics to change. And if we want to update our morals, we need to be able to change our ethics. In Manfred’s article, I believ...

Ethics, maturity and incentives may not appear obvious or natural bedfellows.  However, if someone else’s incentives drive you, you are likely on a journey from immaturity to Peak Paradox.  A road from Peak Paradox towards a purpose looks like maturity as your own incentives drive you. Of note, ethics change depending on the direction of travel.   ---- In psychology, maturity can be operationally defined as the level of psychological functioning one can attain, after which the level of psychological functioning no longer increases with age.  Maturity is the state, fact, or period of being mature . Whilst immature is not fully developed or has an emotional or intellectual development appropriate to someone younger, I want to use the state of immaturity , which is the state where one is not fully mature.  Incentives are a thing that motivates or encourages someone to do something. Peak Paradox is where you try to optimise for everything but cannot achieve a...

Many ask the question “can AI be ethical?” which then becomes a statement “ AI must be ethical! ” In reality we do not tend to unpack this because it appears so logical, but maybe it is not as obvious as we would like. In May 2021 I wrote this article “ What occurs when physical beings transition to information beings? ”  It started to question what happens when an AI does not have the same incentives and bias as humans.  It was building on this the idea that an # AI should not make complex decisions about wicked problems that involve compromise.   There is an implicit assumption in the question “Can AI be ethical?,” that AI is either fundermentall not ethical or is already amoral today but #AI must somehow become ethical and have morals. (or worst it must adopt ours.)   I am not sure AI cares if it is ethical or not but that is a different piece of thinking which I explored here “ Can AI be curious? ”.  We know carbon forms can be curious but we worry ab...

Brillent video explaining Ethical Fading and Moral Disengagement Source:  https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/video/ethical-fading

This strange question needs to be unpacked and to confirm no aminal was hurt in the writing!  This post is NOT addressing do animals feel emotions.  Anyone who has had a mouse to an elephant can easily answer that question; animals do present what humans interrupt as feeling and emotions. Can a dog feel disappointment is the wrong question!   If the question is, can a dog feel doggy-disappointment, surly the answer is yes?   What is doggy-disappointment, we don’t know as we are unable to determine the gap of expectation between what the dog thought they were getting and what actually happened.   Why is this important? What do we really mean when we ask when we think about, “can a dog feel disappointment?”  Is it, can a dog process the same feelings and emotions as a human as we understand disappointment?  We project onto the dog what we think and understand, without knowing what the dog does understand.  Given that emotions are chemistry/ bi...

Algorithms vs Processes.  In both an input is transformed to an output – there is a difference in HOW.  Algorithm = a set of mathematical instructions or rules that, especially when coded enable a computer to calculate an answer. Typically, specific instructions that can be followed or learnt, that can be mechanised and reduces human involvement to zero. It is a tool it is driven with an idea about better or the most efficient resource allocation. An algorithm is a WHAT and HOW Process = a series or method of tasks/ steps/ actions that are taken in order to achieve a result. Typically, instructions that can be followed or learnt, that enable human and compute/ machine involvement to achieve a set goal, objective or result. A procedure is the prescribed way of undertaking a process. A process is a therefore a WHAT and a procedure is HOW Why important, we debate a lot about the dependence on algorithms in the computer age and how these algorithms will talk over the world...

Image: https://cdn-grid.fotosearch.com/CSP/CSP462/opt-out-vs-in-marketing-consent-agree-clip-art__k60530152.jpg Key message : the simple decision about seeking the right “consent” is currently an unseen delegated authority. There is a need to bring back consent decisions to the board. At the board we need to debate consent in light of the ideals such as “privacy by design” and brand position; given that consistency across a business is now more important than a single commercial decision. - o - As a context, much of the classic(al) thinking and definition(s) of consent are here on wikipedia . There is excellent technical work on consent from Kantara for both the user interface and back office processes based on new consent thinking. In the idea of implementing “privacy by design”, I published this blog exploring the concept of Approval vs Forgiveness as the method of gaining consent when considering, specifically, innovation. We explored that the purity of a pos...

Source : Data Science Central   By: Jennifer Lewis Priestley love the thinking, however I would put governance at the top and moral's at the bottom, ethics (as group) above morals, then maths & computer science ( as philosophies ) Then algorithms then communications. Why governance at the top, as we need to be accountable and ethics are not accountable.    

The Inflamed Mind Edward Bullmore Follow Edward on TWITTER In The Inflamed Mind, Cambridge psychiatrist, Professor Edward Bullmore presents a new discovery which overturns centuries of medical, psychological and philosophical understanding: the mind and body are linked far more closely than we ever knew - obvious! Central to this thinking is doing away with old notions of dualism, such as mind and body, inherited from Descartes. For years it has been accepted by the medical profession that mind and body were separated by a `blood-brain barrier', which prevented all cellular interaction. It was not considered professionally respectable to investigate connections between the brain, the realm of neuroscience, and the immune system, the province of immunology, because it was well known that the brain and the immune system had nothing to do with each other. Now it is clear that that is not the whole story. Bullmore's research reveals that the existence of the blood-brain ba...