Ethics Is the Skill That Matters Most Now

This AI written article seems to be substituting ethics for “taste” and making similar arguments to those from the past. Choosing what to do is more important than doing it is a taste problem, of which ethics is an aspect but one of many.

Ethics has always mattered. In 1798 John Adams wrote his famous line "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Incorrect, "ethics" is a good way to get laid off

> Every skill humans once bragged about is getting commoditized. Writing, coding, analysis, translation, design, research. A machine does each of them faster, cheaper, and increasingly better.

This is very much up for debate. I also would have liked your article to delve into whether thing’s that bring us humans joy actually need to be faster, and cheaper. Knowing why you do something crucially depends on knowing the thing being done. It’s very hard to cast an ethic judgement over a process you don’t understand. If your argument is that we need to be ethic stewards of machines but need to step aside the doing then your premise might lead you straight into tautology.

This piece fails to understand that, in general, ethics depends on what side you are on. In hindsight, the winner's notion of right and wrong usually dominates.

If ethics mattered, the colonists wouldn't have taken America or slaves. If pre-existing laws mattered, America would have lost the revolutionary war (America legally belonged to the king). If ethics mattered, anyone who made money in cigarettes would be in prison. If ethics mattered, Zuckerberg and his cronies would be in prison.

If you had been concerned about ethics in the past, you would have failed to create America and failed to create Facebook, etc. In my moral framework, the worst (i.e. greediest, most selfish, anti-social) people have been winning over the last 20-40 years.

This dude needs to read some actual philosophy and then ponder it and write it himself, rather than using AI.

The bottom line of the article:

    Intelligence is being automated. Judgment is not.

This is true. Like with a lot of similar takes on AI, tacit knowledge is not easy to add to the AI’s training set.

Ethics as opposed to morality is about codified rules. This seems to be somewhat conflating the two.

Also this sounds like it's talking about both designing those rules and also applying existing rules, without noticing much distinction between those aspects.

For applying existing rules, is there any reason that can't be mechanized aside from "the tools just aren't that capable yet"?

Designing the rules does have a "will this work as intended" component that can probably be machine-enhanced, but is largely about preferences / "should" questions.

Article looks substantially AI written, and I find it difficult to get past that, especially on a topic like ethics[1]. We already have the following guideline for comments:

"Don't post generated text or AI-edited text. HN is for conversation between humans."

I for one will value a similar guideline for submissions. Maybe we can have a poll. @dang.

[1]maybe an AI written article is fine if it is e.g. documentation for some new gadget.

I love the idea of Ethics in technology. I love the move to bring more Ethics and Morality into technology. I love discussing our place in a crazy marketplace that is the current technology space. I'm sure LLMs and their capabilities are on most people's mind, especially when you think of how people can be differentiated from them. This is a conversation that really should be had in a deep and thoughtful way.

Unfortunately, most of my interest in this article was stifled by the LLM writing. All the wind left my sails when I realized that this website is trying to sell something. Content-wise this article is actually very forgettable. It essentially boils down to:

> Machines can't think, only you can think; and LLMS make bad actors way more powerful. This website will help you think (and stop you from becoming a sucker).

It's trying to sell self-improvement, to make those who are ethically inclined take an AI test. Either the "free" test means that your free-text responses are all being trained on/sold, or they plan to sell you "insights" on your "ethical profile". I'm not against making money; am I the only one who found this monetization a little insidious and manipulative?

Frankly, I'd rather not put my eggs in this LLM shaped basket. Rather I'm going to continue to think critically about myself, write my own self-diagnosis along with talking to friends and family. If I get really worried, I'll get therapy and I already volunteer at church regularly (insert your own way of giving back to the community). Self-reflection is important; if this tool does it for you, then go for it. I, for one, would much rather keep my "human-ness training" in the hands of humans.

I agree with most of what it says there and the overall sentiment.

Two notes:

1. Whoever wrote this, add your name there. Otherwise it is a 0.2x credibility multiplier.

2. I like this topic a lot and would like to discuss it with others that also like it a lot. Reach out (email in my profile), let's make a small discussion group around this :).

I appreciate that this is a topic of discussion, whatever defects the author's post contains, both explicit and tacit.

Some commentary:

1. Ethics is the practical science (in the broader classical sense, not the narrow empirical sense) of right action. But what determines right action? I'll make a stronger and more complete claim: it is the study of human nature, its ultimate end, and the principles that guide us there. Ethics is, therefore, about the principles that underpin the good life. Without its grounding in human nature, and without an end inherent to human nature, there is no ethics. An action's goodness can only be measured in relation to human nature and an end. Anything else is arbitrary and meaningless, hence the widespread and childish conviction that morality is just some set of made-up rules, or perhaps some otherworldly feeling of a gnostic variety. Ethics, morality, and virtue are not external things that we can sometimes appeal to and sometimes not. They concern our condition as human beings at all times and every single decision we make.

2. What the author is talking about when he calls ethics a skill is really personal morality and virtue. Am I a virtuous person? Do I do what I ought or do I habitually choose to do what I ought not to? Ethics helps us clarify our understanding of the underlying principles governing morality, but morality and virtue as such involve their concrete application. Prudence is nothing but the ability to discern what the right decision is here and now and in this situation. It is effectively the skill of applying general moral principles to particular circumstances.

3. A good society requires good members. As bad as collectivism is, this is one reason why libertarian hyper-individualism is also bogus. We are social animals. Our good is not sealed off from the good of society. Our personal immoralities don't just affect us; they affect the society we live in. We are our morality, as it were. If you're a crappy person, you drag the condition of society down. You have a moral duty to be good, and since you are a social animal, that also means you are obligated to be just and even charitable as prudence requires.

In short:

- Ethics is the scientific study of the good life and the end of the human person.

- Morality is the rational quality of our concrete, freely chosen actions.

- Virtue concerns the internal habits that give us the power to act rightly.

- Prudence (the first of the so-called "cardinal virtues") is the practical skill (the "art") of applying ethics to daily life.

Well I guess the industry is fucked then!

> So the filter runs, generation after generation, and what comes out the top is disproportionately people who lie well and feel nothing about it. Not because voters want liars, but because the machinery reliably promotes them.

The reason is that 99% of states are monarchies, and there is immense propaganda effort to make people believe that they in fact live in a democratic system.

Hollywood and the startup world enables nepo kids to lie to themselves and to the public about their "selfmade" status until they receive their ancestral Lordship from the King of England, and this fake meritocracy keeps everyone in line trying their best because one day you could be a billionaire, too.

It's a charade where your last name decides everything, even before you were born. But this is also the most peaceful and stable economic system humanity has come up with after horrors such as the crusades, the Holocaust and Rhodesia. It rewards achievements of many generations past no matter what modern ethics might think about those achievements, and it allows monarchs to peacefully blend in with the peasants.

With this in mind, the only thing a strive for "ethics" gives you is a spot on the weekly kill list.

> This is a selection problem, not a character problem.

This is a times problem, not a selection problem. The unipolar world order is ending, and everyone responds by turning inward and looking for strong leaders who will protect them against the rest.