'The purpose of a system is what it does, and science is a thing which people do': from AI epistemology to AI military ethics
Keywords: military AI, AI epistemology, AI ethics, critical theory, philosophy of technology
Abstract: Drawing upon recent work on understanding the usage of machine learning for natural sciences research, I posit that the epistemic problems of ML have significant bearing upon concerns related to its deployment in a military context. In particular I try to sketch out throughlines between the epistemology and the ethics of AI by way of the useful philosophical lenses of the theory-free ideal and instrumental reason. The urgency of this task is underlined when we consider ML/AI’s growing role in administering human life, in military and statecraft as well as in many other contexts.
The faulty epistemic practices performed by AI practitioners, commentators and policymakers have real consequences on the social and natural world. I consider ethical consequences of the `conceptual poorness' assigned to ML methods, and provide some theoretical scaffolding to fold AI into other discourses of technology, namely the critique of instrumental reason, additionally applying the Marxian notion of reification to understanding AI as a social technology or organizing activity. Informed by my experiences as a junior applied-ML researcher in the space-tech industry, now in academia studying novel ML methods on satellite imagery in regions of humanitarian & conflict concern, and illustrating with some recent examples, I provide a few policy recommendations as well as recommendations for AI ethics & fairness research directions.
Submission Number: 9
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