Vincent Mackenna's Philosophy Blog

Firstly, I want to point out that I find it awesome that we are able to literally able to control the climate. The progression of the human was race is astonishingly impressive. Given the lack of legal responsibility operations have to operate among restrictive parameters to stop climate change, I find the discussion of the ethics of geoengineering is silly. Assuming we believe that the current state of the world is operating ethically, "ethically" meaning "is legal," then there is absolutely no argument against permissing geoengineering. There is a "long-term" argument that geoengineering may not be helpful in the first place (technocratic and instrumentalis), but if that was point was supposed to be false then there is not argument against it given the person feels an obligation to protect earth.  I find Drengson's statement that humans are not "power as masters and controllers of nature" to be a bit ironic. Humans, a large contributor ...

As someone who would be considered a "rational egoist," I wouldn't whistle-blow under virtually any circumstance that would result in serious negative ramifications. That said, I find it disgusting that the term "whistle-blowing" even exists, but I'm not surprised that it does. If there is a flaw in a system that I was apart of I would want to tell the issue to my supervisor, but because there is no safe way to do so, I wouldn't do it. I think the primary problem with this lies in the consequence. There should be a power allocated to the government to stop companies from firing whistle-blowers. While the company would surely find some other petty way to fire the person, there should, at the very least, be a system that directly stops the firing of whistle-blowing. While wrongful termination does exist in the legal system, it always favors the corporations with the power and money to sue any of their employees into debt. This, as I stated a thousand tim...

Disregarding the magnitude of the responsibility seems incredibly disingenuous. The best analogy I can make is this: Alcohol surely may make you do something that you otherwise might not do, and consuming alcohol, by nature of knowing that, make me responsible for my actions. While I may do something that I may not otherwise do, I take on the responsibility of these intoxicated actions by drinking in the first place (and knowing at the same time that my inhibitions will be lowered by this action). If this logic is applied to engineering, it stunts growth. If the development of A.I. systems may  have negative consequences, why should an engineer take on the responsibility of such a feat? If I am the lead software engineer of an A.I. system that is used in self-driving cars, and an inconceivably low probability problem occurs that leads to the death of 10 people, in this line of thinking I should be responsible. I knew that such issues may occur, but I took on the task anyway. Whil...

While I have not done specific research on the politics of technology, I have a strong notion to disagree with Winner in the introduction of this article. Artificial intelligence is something that has had a lot of political/ethical debate surrounding it, and rightfully so. Even if the true impact of "super-intelligent" (a broad term used to describe A.I. systems that surpass or simulate human level intelligence—which are, at the very least, not in the foreseeable future). A.I. is not known currently, the varying hypothesis around such impact is infinitely fascinating. I stand on the side of, what I like to call, "singularity skepticism." Which, in short, is a skeptical view of the hypothesized impact on singularity and occurrence. Most qualified computer scientist are found on this side, but the general population are overwhelmingly afraid of A.I. systems, both super-intelligent and simple. If I were to give a simple statement on my views of ethical consideration ...

This analysis seems to take on a very utilitarian point of view in defining the "balance of benefits and burdens" of the environmental justice.  "It is the boomerang effect of a harmful practice on its supposed beneficiaries that often leads them to halt the practice." This is such a fantastic line. This seems to be the case with a lot of ethical injustice regarding politics, or, more aptly, money. No significant change will ever occur until the ones promote the behavior face backlash or personal loss from the behavior. The EJP is quite depressing, really. There is simply nothing the less affluent people can do but be at the will of the people have the money or influence to change such injustices that are in-congruently affecting them negatively.   Even in such events where a "movement" is formed, that movement still needs the backing of affluent people, and in the case that no affluent person can be personally and positively affected by the issue ...

I have not done a lot of research into the ethics of technology in general, but by interest I have written a few papers on the ethics and threat of the technological singularity—the supposed moment in time where artificial intelligence will reach a point in which there will be an instant, irreversible change. Given that, most of my ethical consideration surrounding non-medical sciences, ignorantly so, is based of what I have researched about singularity. As Jonas addressed at the end of the chapter, there is very much a possibility that there is too much emphasis on the threat of technology and underplayed its promise. I am a dissenter for Joans' view; however, I have no doubt that the promise of technology is overplayed—in fact, I think it may be under played. When thinking about hypothetical threats of technology, I believe that artificial intelligence poses the most threat. The very idea of creating a super-human mind is something that we cannot fathom, and there are studies t...