On the “bullshit” of the intelligent explosion and singularity discourse

Abstract

Should artificial intelligence/machine ethicists be concerned with the singularity/ intelligent explosion (the view that superintelligent technologies will emerge in the future) and their potential harms, or should they channel their ethical ounce on mitigating the current ethical challenges of machine learning, such as algorithmic bias and discrimination? I argue that the discussion on the intelligent explosion/ technological singularity/super intelligence is a futuristic hype that distracts ethicist from addressing the pressing and immediate problems that come with current designs of AI, especially machine learning technologies. This article underscores that AI ethicists must resist the utopian futuristic hype of conceiving these machines as potential human-like agents with goals to pursue. Rather, the aforementioned ethicists must focus on innovating new approaches to fully mitigate real-time ethical bumps of these technologies, such as bias and discrimination. As I will show in this article, the current utopic hype of these technologies is not feasible in the near future. Thus, it is counter-productive for AI ethicists to channel all their ethical arsenals into ensuring the responsible design of utopic technologies. Rather, these ethical arsenals should be used innovatively to ensure responsible designs of current technologies in the current social milieu to mitigate current problems like bias and discrimination that are embedded in these technologies.