Episode 83: When Should Machines Decide?

Episode 83: When Should Machines Decide?

From Voices from DARPA by DARPA

October 24, 2024 · 21 min

About this episode

The episode explores the trustworthiness of AI in life or death decisions and the ethical implications of delegating such decisions to machines.

What characteristics make a person trustworthy? Under what circumstances would a person delegate life or death decisions to artificial intelligence (AI)? Does it matter that AI systems reflect trustworthy humans’ decision-making preferences, morals, and ethics? If so, what characteristics are most important? These are some of the fundamental questions DARPA researchers are exploring for the In the Moment (ITM) program, which aims to support the development of algorithms that are trusted to independently make decisions in difficult domains, particularly in significant trauma events such as battlefield triage. DARPA’s research has identified the need for fundamentally different approaches to advance AI technology to a place where we’re willing to trust it and not be foolish to do so. Continuing themes from our mini-series on ELSI – ethical, legal, and societal implications of new technologies and capabilities – we meet with DARPA’s ITM program manager, Dr. Patrick Shafto, and the ITM performers and ELSI advisors, who break down how they’re tackling the fundamental question of alignment in the context of human decision-makers and autonomous decision-making tools. In case you missed…

People in this episode

Guest: Dr. Patrick Shafto

Topics covered

  • artificial intelligence
  • decision-making
  • trust
  • ethics
  • trauma events
  • human alignment

Keywords

  • AI
  • trustworthy
  • decision-making
  • ethics
  • trauma
  • battlefield triage
  • ELSI

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: DARPA, RTX BBN

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