QnA The Critical Role of Ethics and Philosophy in Shaping Research and Education Policy

Duration: 15:15 1966 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

The video addresses the critical intersection of ethics, philosophy, and public policy through a series of insightful questions regarding artificial intelligence, environmental morality, and educational priorities. A significant portion of the discussion focuses on accountability in the era of AI, specifically exploring who bears responsibility when an algorithmic diagnostic tool causes patient harm. The speaker explains that current technology operates under "weak AI," where humans remain the ultimate agents defining rules, creating a complex "many hands" scenario involving designers, programmers, and implementers. Consequently, determining liability requires distinguishing between biased programming and flawed implementation, suggesting that responsibility must be clearly assigned to specific parties depending on the nature of the error rather than assuming a single autonomous entity is at fault. The conversation further delves into philosophical debates concerning anthropocentrism versus non-anthropocentric views like sentientism and biocentrism in environmental ethics. While critics argue that attempts to grant AI or nature moral standing often hide underlying human-centered biases, the speaker defends a nuanced form of anthropocentrism. This perspective posits that viewing the world through one's own perspective does not inherently lead to disrespecting nature; rather, it is possible to maintain a human viewpoint while adhering to an ethical framework that respects the environment. The argument emphasizes that not all forms of anthropocentrism are harmful and that recognizing this distinction is essential for developing robust environmental policies that do not detrimentally affect the ecosystem. Finally, the dialogue shifts to the state of ethical education in the Philippines amidst political instability and competing societal priorities. A question arises regarding proposals to remove ethics courses from college curricula on the grounds that basic manners are already taught in elementary and high school. The speaker strongly refutes this notion by distinguishing between acting "in accordance with duty," which involves habitual behavior, and acting "out of duty," which requires conscious moral judgment and maturity. He argues that while early education instills social norms, higher education is vital for equipping students to navigate complex moral dilemmas where right and wrong are not immediately obvious. The speaker concludes that eliminating ethics from university programs would be disastrous, as the ability to make sound ethical judgments is a skill that develops with age and experience, becoming increasingly necessary in a mature society facing significant challenges.

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Okay, thank you, Dr. Nap. Dr. Nap will now be taking questions again. Uh, same thing as a while ago. You can just raise your hand and I'll call you. But before that, we had someone ask a question a while ago. So I will call on him from the social development research center Mr. Romel Villena. Very interesting question, Sir Romel. Oh, are you still there? That's it. Okay. Very interesting question. So go ahead, Sir Romel. Go ahead. Good afternoon and the rest of the participants. Uh hearing about your interest on bioethics which is a thing that we need to know because in the future we might have some patients who will be taken to the hospital about surgery. Now that AI is a globally accepted thing. My question related to bioethics is if an artificial intelligence diagnostic tool makes a treatment recommendation that results in patient harm question is who bears the legal and moral responsibility is it the physician who trusted it the biomedical engineers who coded it or the hospital that deployed it thank you Okay. Thank you very much, uh, Romel. Uh, good to see you. Okay. Yes. Uh by the way, no, uh again, uh that's a good example of we can do research on existing policies. Now, uh right now, uh, our existing policy in the Philippines, no, for organ cadaveric organ donation is the op in system. So, we are operating under the opinion system. But there are proposals no uh from Congress and Senate uh they're saying that it's better for us to shift to the OPO system and there are debates on this and there are ethical issues here. Okay? It's not just you know just increasing uh the number of organ donation but we need to be concerned also about the the ethics of uh these two systems. Okay. Now uh with regard to your question uh it is actually not just relating to bioethics no it's more of a general question with regard to uh accountability with regards to uh AI right now we are operating under what we call weak AI na uh wherein basically AI is used as a human instrument okay basically the agents are still humans. Okay. Although we can speak of autonomous AI like uh self driving cars no but then again they are the the rules uh upon which they play around are still human defined okay human generated okay the the the fully autonomous AI which we can say to be we can be morally accountable are those uh will be capable of uh coming up with their own rules no for their own actions. But uh what I'm trying to say is that right now okay uh there is the so-called many hands phenomenon meaning there are many who contribute to uh the algorithm okay the designers the implementers and so on. So it's very difficult actually uh right to pinpoint no uh who would be responsible for in case there will be harm uh that will be uh uh done no uh as a result of using AI no so uh we need to to have a clear line of responsibility here uh with regard to the algorithms whether they are bias or not. Okay. So if they are proven to be biased. Okay. So the the we can we can uh say that the the people accountable are the programmers but if they are not bias but it's it's in the implementation uh that is where the problem is. So uh those people uh implementing the AI will be uh the ones accountable. So I think uh for a general question like that we need to be we need to specify no uh which aspect of the action uh because you know uh the programming the implementation and so on. Okay. So, it's really a challenging uh question right now because of the many hands phenomenon. Many many people contribute to the design and application of AI algorithms. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for that question, Sir Romel. Very interesting question. It's like the one in the movie Passengers by Chris Pratt and the one in Prometheus, the medical treatment, you just go in. If you watch it, you go into a medical capsule where you just press what will be done to you. The question is, who can do that? How many people or really the best medical professionals? If if you watch that movie no or others here, if you watch that movie, Prometheus and the passengers no uh it's set in the future and they have all these uh you can you just press the button and then they'll just do the procedure on you. Anyway, uh we have here a question from Mr. Cuo. So yeah. Oh, Mr. story again you can ask Dr. Back up your questions. Okay, go ahead. Uh hello uh apologies for my background but uh how was your student um I have a I'm a reader of your books too and ethics and mind and I couldn't help but um there is some the way I experience the concepts the taxonomy of the categories there are lots rigid delineations to it which leads me to this question whether um of concerning anthropocentrism versus nonanthropocentric the way ecologists argue of life equivalence in trying to give AI some sort of wellbeing to it and this is some sort of response to anthropocentrism But within that very um life equivalence notion of the psychology I can't help but see the an the hidden anthropocentrism within that nonanthropocentrism and so categories begin to collapse. So I wonder whether anthropocentrism is wanting that we should embrace you know and whether conceptually how we can avoid how we how we will be able to treat categories so they don't collapse in themselves. Uh that's actually a paper I'm working on. uh we have a non-anthropocentric approach to environmental ethics. No we have sentientism okay the biocentrism ecocentrism as against no the homocentrism uh that can be supported by uh can ethics but but uh can ethics also has a way of uh uh dealing with uh environmental uh issues that will not be detrimental to the environment. Uh, you're right. Many critics are saying that uh uh in the end these anthropocentric uh theories are athropocentric as well. No uh and and they have their reasons no. Uh so uh but but I have a defense for that no because uh not all not all forms of uh anthropocentrism uh are harmful. Okay. Like like like uh like uh for instance if you're going to tell me that I'm an anthropocentric because uh I look at nature from my own point of view. Okay, because it's my point of view, my perspective that I look at nature. I have my own categories and so on. And then that makes me anthropocentric and you conclude that will necessarily lead to uh my behavior uh not respecting nature. Uh I don't think that that necessary uh follows. No. Okay. I can uh view things from my own point of view and yet I can uh have a certain kind of ethics that would lead me to respect nature. So that kind of anthropocentrism I think is uh harm harmless no so if that's going to be the argument against this nonhropocentric uh theories uh I think um uh it can be uh dealt with no uh uh well okay so so I uh I believe that not all forms of anthrop anthropocentrism are harmful Okay. Yeah, that's that's my answer to that. Okay. Thank you, Professor. Good. Good. I appreciate it. Thank you. So, I think we have time for about two more questions. Uh let's have Mr. Alex Henon from PUP. Hello, Sir. Um, good afternoon. I'm very fond of reading your concept of pakigaipkapwa and I'm also using it as my paradigm to do a kind of work in progress research on pakigaipkapa in line with Filipino existentialism. So that's my uh work in progress research. Now my question is regarding the ethical research no and my curious question is what is now the direction of our ethical research in the Philippines given the fact that we are experiencing a lot of political animosities and at the same time the challenge of the teaching ethics in in the universities and the institutions were in fact that it's not being given a kind of a a kind of a uh high priority instead it is the priority now it's on how to employ people going back to my previous questions and at the same time no uh to yeah to highly in to intensify no the the readiness of students no in in the in the corporate fields so what's now the direction of our ethical research given the fact that there are so many challenges that we need to address here in our country specifically now no the adding the impeachment trials adding the flood control problems so that's my question sir now ah right now uh uh perhaps you are alluding to the uh the idea of uh some politicians no uh to scrap ethics no uh from uh college. Okay. Uh saying uh that uh it's already been uh taken in the elementary and high school. No. Uh so there there will just be a duplication. Uh that's what I consider to be uh a policy that is not based on sound research. Okay. A while ago I was saying that some policies no uh influence research directions, funding, priorities, no? But some of these policies are not really based on sound research. Okay. Uh, you're correct. uh you know um if I if I may use uh K's uh uh distinction between uh acting in accordance with duty and acting out of duty. Are you familiar with that? No so uh they're saying uh in elementary and high school uh we are already being taught uh good manners. Okay, but that's what uh I can refer to as acting in accordance with duty which does not have moral wars no uh for uh because you are not conscious of why you are doing certain things you are just being trained to behave in certain ways no uh which which uh are uh acceptable to society no uh but uh we need to act out of duty in the sense that uh our action is based on awareness realization of uh what should be uh the case no right no uh the more we need ethics actually no uh in college because of uh uh the issues that we are uh facing with no in our uh country no so uh it's not it's not going to be sold by you know teaching uh children how to behave properly because when they up when they uh come face to face with uh situations no which uh offer opposite alternatives which are equally ethically uh attractive no how are they going to uh make a decision no which course of action is a better so we need to ethics is also about making sound judgment okay and uh of course uh that kind of uh, knowledge comes with maturity. Okay. So uh the more mature we uh become no uh the more uh we have the abilities to uh decipher evaluate moral situation. So uh that's uh you know that's a very that's a very unfortunate thing. hopefully uh it won't be applied. Okay. Uh that thought that they were thinking of uh you know scrapping ethics in uh college. So that will be very disastrous uh for our country. Yes.