Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!sri-unix!hplabs!tektronix!tekcrl!tekchips!willc From: willc@tekchips.UUCP (Will Clinger) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: AI and the Arms Race Message-ID: <863@tekchips.UUCP> Date: Mon, 24-Nov-86 15:34:13 EST Article-I.D.: tekchips.863 Posted: Mon Nov 24 15:34:13 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 26-Nov-86 09:45:59 EST References: <8611181719.AA00510@watdcsu.uucp> <2862@burdvax.UUCP> Reply-To: willc@tekchips.UUCP (Will Clinger) Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 28 Keywords: weizenbaum arms race ethics In article <2862@burdvax.UUCP> blenko@burdvax.UUCP (Tom Blenko) writes: >If Weizenbaum or anyone else thinks he or she can succeeded in weighing >possible good and bad applications, I think he is mistaken. Wildly >mistaken. > >Why does Weizenbaum think technologists are, even within the bounds of >conventional wisdom, competent to make such judgements in the first >place? Is this supposed to mean that professors of moral philosophy are the only people who should make moral judgments? Or is it supposed to mean that we should trust the theologians to choose for us? Or that we should leave all such matters to the politicians? Representative democracy imposes upon citizens a responsibility for judging moral choices made by the leaders they elect. It seems to me that anyone presumed to be capable of judging others' moral choices should be presumed capable of making their own. It also seems to me that responsibility for judging the likely outcome of one's actions is not a thing that humans can evade, and I applaud Weizenbaum for pointing out that scientists and engineers bear this responsibility as much as anyone else. By saying this I neither applaud nor deplore the particular moral choices that Weizenbaum advocates. William Clinger