![]() The Ethical Regulator TheoremThe Ethical Regulator Theorem provides a basis for systematically evaluating and improving the adequacy of existing or proposed designs for systems that make decisions that can have ethical consequences; regardless of whether the regulating agents are humans, artificially intelligent machines, cyberanthropic hybrids, organizations, corporations, or government institutions. The theorem builds upon the Good Regulator Theorem and Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety to define nine requisites that are necessary and sufficient for a cybernetic regulator to be both effective and ethical:
Of these nine requisites, only the first six are necessary for a regulator to be effective.
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![]() Ethical Design ProcessAny existing design process can be made ethical by using the Ethical Regulator Theorem (ERT) as a decision function for acceptance testing of the requirements and specifications.
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![]() Super-Ethical SystemsA six-level framework is proposed for classifying cybernetic and superintelligent systems, which uses the Ethical Regulator Theorem to distinguish between two important subclasses of superintelligent systems.
Consequently, a bifurcation is identified in our future time-line that results in one of two mutually exclusive outcomes:
By predicting the existence of a race condition, the Ethical Regulator Theorem provides a concrete and viable strategy to avoid the danger that creating superintelligent machines could lead humanity into a cybermisanthropic dystopia:
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To learn more...See the concept paper published on 9 December 2020 in the Systems journal: Ethical Regulators and Super-Ethical Systems. |
![]() W. Ross Ashby Digital ArchiveThis domain no longer hosts a copy of the W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive. |