Technical self-discipline: technical protection scheme for minors
2022-06-01
When it comes to the relationship between technology and people, a simple idea of human law and technology will always appear. This idea is similar to the early humanism, and generally holds a positive imagination for technology. The Renaissance, which began in the 14th century, liberated people's minds and affirmed their subjective values. Human beings who have stepped out of the framework of religious and spiritual knowledge have stepped into the rational world. Man has become the master of the world instead of God, and technology has become a weapon for human beings to consolidate their dominance. In short, in the primary stage of humanism, man and technology are interdependent and exist, and technology is still a dependency of man. Both of them work together to reclaim the wilderness in a new world. 01 is technology the law of man or technology the law of man? However, the harmonious landscape of human law technology did not last for a long time. People gradually lost their complete dominance of technology, and alienation began to appear at all levels of social life. The large-scale homogeneous cultural industry has led to the decline of elegant art while prospering mass culture, and the assembly line has limited the multi-dimensional aesthetic orientation. The bureaucratic system scheme adhering to the rational spirit has greatly improved the efficiency of social operation, but one-sided rationality makes people fall into a "modern iron cage". The expansion of technology failed to realize the utopian ideal of mankind, but let people fall into their own subjectivity crisis. The "Megamachine" in the mouth of Lewis Mumford has become a heavy social reality, and human beings are lost in the panic of technological law. Although there are still many discussions about whether technology rules man or man rules technology, in the various games between technological power and human power, we must admit that technology is irresistible to some extent, and man's complete dominance of technology may be just an imaginary myth. In the social system, minors are a special group. From the growth stage, minors have not yet established a perfect cognitive system, which is easily affected and difficult to correct; From the perspective of social composition, minors are tender and fragile, with a large base but almost no ability to actively control technology. For adults, the influence of technology that is difficult to control will be multiplied for minors. Therefore, it is urgent to find a technical protection scheme for minors in the modern society with the rapid development of technology. In fact, many schemes have been put forward at home and abroad. Both the law of the people's Republic of China on the protection of minors and the Convention on the rights of the child involve the technical protection of minors, but in the final analysis, it is a technical heteronomy scheme, and human legal technology is its underlying logic. However, as mentioned above, technical heteronomy may not be an ideal solution, because it is conflict and struggle. Especially when we are in the era of intelligence, the humanness and permeability of artificial intelligence technology make the impact of technology inevitable. Digital survival seems to have become a new mode of human survival. Then we can't help asking, in the era of artificial intelligence, when the heteronomy scheme is not feasible, is it possible to protect minors with technology? If possible, how to achieve it? The answer may be found in Immanuel Kant's Thoughts on autonomy. Two questions need to be answered to answer how technology can realize minors' technical protection through self-discipline. The first question: can technology be self disciplined? That is, what is the basis for the realization of technology self-discipline? Second question: how can technology be self disciplined? That is, what is the operation logic of technology self-discipline? 02 can technology be self disciplined The thought of self-discipline runs through Kant's moral philosophy system and is closely related to the concepts of "innate reason" and "will". First of all, it needs to be clear that the real world is full of experience, that is, it is full of randomness and uncertainty. However, in Kant's view, this kind of empirical acquisition can not enable us to obtain the real moral law, because the real morality "is the moral code that we must abide by under any circumstances", and its primary requirement and greatest feature is universality and inevitability. So how can we get the moral law of necessity? Kant believes that innate reason is the core. In Kant's moral philosophy system, "innate reason exists freely in the heart of every rational thing", which is naturally obtained and has nothing to do with acquired experience. Therefore, the will to obey the innate reason can also abandon the "material" and rise to the "good will", guide people to act in accordance with the moral law, so as to achieve a pure morality. When people can put aside utilitarianism and purpose, and only take social actions based on pure moral laws under the action of good will, they will achieve self-discipline and reach the realm of "self-discipline is freedom" in Kant's words. At this time, "self-discipline not only exists as a kind of 'moral intention', but also reflects the 'practical ability' of the moral subject". So does artificial intelligence have the foundation to realize Kantian self-discipline? The answer is yes. First of all, the human like endowment of artificial intelligence determines that it has the thinking basis of imitating human beings to implement moral laws. As a technology to simulate and extend human intelligence, artificial intelligence and human thinking have inherent commonality. Artificial intelligence can be understood as an artificial neural network that imitates the structure of human brain. Whether it is weak artificial intelligence that can only execute the established scheme, or strong artificial intelligence that has independent consciousness and can pass the Turing test, abstract logical thinking is the underlying ability, which is also one of the human thinking patterns. With the help of abstract logical thinking, human beings can follow innate rationality and realize self-discipline of will. From this point of view, in terms of thinking foundation, artificial intelligence has the possibility of practicing Kantian self-discipline. Secondly, the technical logic of artificial intelligence determines that it has the practical basis of following "the innate rationality of technology". Now we are in the stage of weak artificial intelligence, and we are unable to realize the self perception of machines and real self-awareness and intelligent thinking. In the weak artificial intelligence stage, the important technology development means is deep learning, that is, on the basis of building the machine learning model, massive data training is used to improve its accuracy. Therefore, the final behavior result of artificial intelligence still needs to be based on the underlying code, and can not make actions beyond the scope of code design. The view that "code is law" prevails in the blockchain field, emphasizing the certainty of rules and the exclusion of external interference. From a deeper level, "code is law" actually reflects a "fundamentalist technological belief", especially emphasizing the sanctity of code. Although there is still a huge controversy about this view in the academic circles - the code actually embeds human value judgments, in any case, it is a consensus that intelligent technology will operate according to the established rules and will not be disturbed by the outside world in the operation process, regardless of whether the rules are neutral or moral. This coincides with Kant's innate thought. For people, only by following absolute laws and upholding absolute rationality can they reach the other side of morality. For the artificial intelligence that follows the "innate rationality of technology", when this rationality meets the requirements of the absolute law, then the artificial intelligence also has the practical foundation to realize self-discipline. 03 why technology is self disciplined We know that artificial intelligence can realize self-discipline, that is, artificial intelligence can realize the independent protection of minors in theory. What is the realization mechanism of this protection? According to Kant's philosophical theory, he emphasized the following points: 1. Moral law must have inevitability and universality "Act only according to the principle that you are willing to make it a universal law at the same time." The reason why Kant requires that moral norms must exclude experience and be based on innate rationality is that only in this way can people have a reliable basis to make the final moral judgment, and we can judge whether a behavior is moral, and make this judgment result have strong support. 2. The definite imperative form is the real moral imperative Kant used imperative to express the relationship between objective law and will. Imperative is divided into hypothetical (if you want to..., do...) and categorical (to do...). Categorical command emphasizes unconditional and purposeless, that is, it does not do it for any other purpose, but is rooted in its own good will. Categorical commands exclude the intervention of experience and point to unconditional constraints on behavior. Only when a kind of behavior is guided by categorical commands and is true to foreign things, can it really move towards morality and realize freedom. 3. For human purposes rather than means In Kant's view, as a rational being, man is noble and "should be the end at all times". Man has absolute value, and his existence is an end in itself. Other things should only serve him as a means, not as a means to pursue other things. Therefore, it is completely undesirable to trample on the dignity of others by taking others as a means. In social action, it is immoral to override others and oneself. Inspired by this, we can construct a framework of technological self-discipline to protect minors. 1. Principle of universality First, it is necessary to formulate a set of principles for the protection of minors with absolute moral significance. The practice of Kantian moral self-discipline system needs to be guided by moral laws. Therefore, at the beginning of technology setting, it is necessary to integrate the moral principles of minor protection into it and make it a universal principle, that is, it needs to be consistent in the overall system of technology and must be unconditionally observed. 2. Unconditional execution When developing technologies related to minors, the guiding moral rules need to be unconditionally implemented and cannot let other interests override them. At the same time, it is not allowed to take protective actions for minors for other purposes, so as to avoid the interference of empirical factors and subjective motives. In the process of technology development and update iteration, the protection of minors also needs to be put in the first place. 3. Individual respect Individual respect means to respect the minors themselves. On the one hand, the protection of minors should not be regarded as an addition to technology, but as an attribute of technology itself. On the other hand, the protection of minors should not be regarded as a way to seek other interests, but should really be regarded as a goal to be achieved. At present, it is only a theoretical assumption to realize the protection of minors through technical self-discipline. However, with the deep evolution of artificial intelligence technology, it is possible to solve the problem of man-machine confrontation and ensure the loftiness and sanctity of human beings only by finding new ways and new solutions. (Xinhua News Agency)
Edit：Li Ling Responsible editor：Chen Jie
Source：tenyun
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