IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017 - 33

opinion

John C. Havens

The Fleeting
Opportunity to Create
our Values by Design

h a t a re your va l-
ues? I'm asking you,
the reader.
As a quick exer-
cise, try to write down
ten values you hold dear on a piece of
paper. You can use words like - integ-
rity, honesty, family, privacy, or any
other value oriented word that comes
to mind. However, there's a catch:
You also need to be able to prove
to yourself that you live to these val-
ues every day.
In a time when artificial intelli-
gence and autonomous systems (AI/
AS) are providing more opportuni-
ties for personalization and time
savings than ever before, it's critical
to pause for a moment to ask, "How
will machines know what we value if
we don't know ourselves?"
This isn't rhetorical, and the play
on words is intentional. While it may
come easy to criticize programmers
creating the code defining AI/AS,
where machines or systems that mir-
ror human values come into play, we
as individuals need to identify, test,
and codify these attributes so we can
best help technologists align their cre-
ations with our deeply held beliefs.
Thankfully, the rise of applied ethi-
cal considerations for artificial intel-
ligence has become a hot topic in
the past few months. The formation
of the  Partnership on AI working
to create ethical guidelines for the
corporate arena and the Asilomar
Principles on AI featuring twenty
three principles along these lines

W

are just two examples of recent
efforts reinforcing the need to pre-
emptively think about values-driven
issues before launching AI/AS prod-
ucts, versus only addressing neg-
ative unintended consequences once
something is released.
This same mentality is what drove
the launch of The IEEE Global Ini-
tiative for Ethical Considerations in
Artificial Intelligence and Autono-
mous Systems in April of 2016. A
key focus for The IEEE Global Initia-
tive is the creation and updating of
Ethically Aligned Design, a docu-
ment representing an early code of
ethics for AI/AS created by over one
hundred leading minds in AI, AS, eth-
ics, policy, business, academia, and
science. Featuring over eighty Issues
from eight different committees,
each section also provides Candi-
date Recommendations to provide
directional solutions for readers.
Created to pragmatically help the
creators of AI/AS in their work today,
it was launched as a Request for
Input so readers could actively con-
tribute feedback in the creation of
Ethically Aligned Design, version
two. Utilizing critique from the RFI
and responses at their recent event

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2017.2697081
Date of publication: 8 June 2017

June 2017

∕

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

in Austin, TX, members of The IEEE
Global Initiative will release Ethically Aligned Design, Version two,
in October of this year. Plans are al-
ready in motion to continue to evolve
the document in this community
oriented, consensus driven process
for the creation of a third and fu-
ture versions of the document while
seeking a broader cultural response
to the Issues and Recommendations
provided. The goal is that Ethically
Aligned Design will be seen as a key
resource globally as a code of ethics
for AI/AS that will stay evergreen as
its iterated once a year.

Making It About You
But now back to you and your values.
What do you believe? How do you
know? Are you living to your values
and how can you prove that you are?
As a pragmatic tool to use for a
personal experiment, I've provided
a graph (Figure 1) representing a
survey I created with Dr. Margaret L.
Kern, Senior Lecturer at the Center
for Positive Psychology, Melbourne
Graduate School of Education, Mel-
bourne University. Peggy and I creat-
ed the survey for my non-profit, The
Happathon Project a few years back

33



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