Common Management Errors (26)

Xxvi) Need To Understand Social Suite (Machine Behaviour)

"...a crucial set of capacities we have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, including love, friendship, cooperation and teaching. The basic contours of these traits remain remarkably consistent, regardless of whether a population is urban or rural and whether or not it uses modern technology......social suite that allows us to live together peacefully and effectively......genetically inherited capacities of love, friendship, cooperation and teaching have continued to help us live communally..."
Nicholas A Christakis 2019

Over thousands of years, we have adapted to radical innovations, like moving into the cities from rural areas, the printing press, the telephone and more recently the Internet. Yet these innovations have not radically changed the social suite.
"...Cooperation is a key feature of our species especially from social life, and trust and generosity are crucial in differentiating successful groups and unsuccessful ones. If everyone pitches in and sacrifices in order to help the group, everyone should benefit. When this behaviour breaks down, the very notion of a public good disappears and everyone suffers..."
Nicholas A Christakis 2019

There is some concern that AI could threaten the social suite concept by reducing our ability to work together - for example, if people become more comfortable talking to a machine than other humans.

Another example is driverless cars. This has the potential to reduce human error, like fatigue, distraction, etc that causes most accidents. However,
"...Driving is a very modern kind of social interaction, requiring high levels of cooperation and social coordination......driverless cars, by depriving us of an occasion to exercise these abilities could contribute to their atrophy......and hence to usurp from humans the power to make moral judgements..."
Nicholas A Christakis 2019

An example of the moral judgement is when an accident is inevitable, how to handle.

First need to understand the social spill overs or externalities or second order impacts from machines, ie a robot should never do anything that can harm humanity!!!!

A new field called machine behaviour is being developed. It hopes to put our understanding on a sounder theoretical and technical foundation. It sees robots as a new class of social actors.

Their AI by virtue of either programming or independent learning have come to exhibit forms of intelligence and behaviours that could be different from ours
"...The aspects of AI that should concern us the most are the ones that affect the core aspects of human social life - the traits that have enabled our species' survival over the millennia..."
Nicholas A Christakis 2019

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