Do we need a Hippocratic Oath for artificial intelligence scientists?

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been beneficial for humanity, improving many human activities. However, there are now significant dangers that may increase when AI reaches a human level of intelligence or superintelligence. It is paramount to focus on ensuring that AI is designed in a manner that is robustly beneficial for humans. The ethics and personal responsibilities of AI scientists could play an important role in continuing the constructive use of AI in the future. Lessons can be learnt from the long and successful history of medical ethics. Therefore, a Hippocratic Oath for AI scientists may increase awareness of the potential lethal threats of AI, enhance efforts to develop safe and beneficial AI to prevent corrupt practices and manipulations and invigorate ethical codes. The Hippocratic Oath in medicine, using simple universal principles, is a basis of human ethics, and in an analogous way, the proposed oath for AI scientists could enhance morality beyond biological consciousness and spread ethics across the universe.