Insurers Must Navigate The Moral Maze Of AI

The industry must develop a code of ethics around the insurance of artificial intelligence systems if it does not want to have a set of rules arbitrarily imposed on.

For decades, when discussing the basis on which futuristic robots would make decisions, people turned to science fiction for answers - specifically, visionary writer Isaac Asimov, whose laws of robotics seemed to hold the promise of a workable solution.

Back in 1942, Asimov postulated three laws that would govern a robot's behaviour, namely: a robot must not injure a human being; a robot must obey orders given by human beings, unless this resulted in harm to a human; a robot must protect its own existence as long as this did not conflict with the first or second laws.

As a first attempt at creating a code of ethics for artificial intelligence (AI), the three laws were a commendable piece of work, but as real AI proliferates, we can now see their inherent weaknesses.

Consider the well-trodden scenario in which the AI controlling an autonomous vehicle must choose between hitting a pedestrian or, potentially, injuring its occupant. Asimov's first law ¬- a robot may not injure a human being - is immediately revealed as unfit for purpose. The vehicle's AI has no ethical basis, or value system, on which to make the difficult choice. The result: either the vehicle's AI freezes, or it flips a philosophical coin. Clearly, neither option is satisfactory.

Beyond the relative simplicity of the kill/do not kill decision, AI poses a host of less instantly dramatic conundrums, but whose impact...