Flourishing Ethics and identifying ethical values to instill into artificially intelligent agents

Abstract

The present paper uses a Flourishing Ethics analysis to address the question of which ethical values and principles should be “instilled” into artificially intelligent agents. This is an urgent question that is still being asked seven decades after philosopher/scientist Norbert Wiener first asked it. An answer is developed by assuming that human flourishing is the central ethical value, which other ethical values, and related principles, can be used to defend and advance. The upshot is that Flourishing Ethics can provide a common underlying ethical foundation for a wide diversity of cultures and communities around the globe; and the members of each specific culture or community can add their own specific cultural values—ones which they treasure, and which help them to make sense of their moral lives.