We would like to personally start with sharing certain human behavior that no matter how much we want to suppress, still exists within us. For example our corporate life where we are given the task of making a hard decision, how much will that affect us? And how much more will it affect us if that decision has been taken by our seniors or supervisors. Now imagine the future where these decisions will be taken by a machine.
Quantum computing at its finest can make these appropriate decisions at Nano second speeds. This question now belongs in the genre of sci-fi but very soon it will be a ‘moral’ question. The subject of morality and Cognitive Computing will forever be a debatable topic. Let us visit a world where we have successfully created Artificial Intelligence; where man and machine coexist.
Let’s imagine a scenario where a building catches fire and trapped in it is a mother and daughter. Both of them injured and room is been filled with smoke. You can only save one of them. The human in us would have a moral dilemma but the robot, created to this specific task in its accurate analysis, has confirmed that the chance of survival for the older mother is greater than the younger infant. Our sentiments might just have us leave the mother only to have the child ceased before we could rush her to the emergency room. This is where our ‘personal’ moral codes significantly endanger another life. I am well aware that this topic has indeed been the discussion point in several Hollywood blockbusters (‘I Robot’ comes to mind in this particular example), but in the long run this is not a topic we can brush off easily. We are spitting distance from this reality. The future of our Green Earth is surely based on the improvements and achievements of Cognitive Computing. This moral dilemma would be where we stand at cross roads at a not so distant future.
The irony, of course, is that what’s moral in a given context is purely subjective and most importantly personal.