June 1st, 2051
Welcome, candidates, to the first annual swearing in ceremony of the Programmers’ Guild. The oath you take today is solemn, and binds you to our newly established code of ethics. Remember, before you take this oath, that failure to uphold it will not only result in your ejection from the Guild, it will also result in criminal charges for malpractice that may lead to fine, imprisonment, or death.
If you are ready and willing, place your hands over your ceremonial keyboards and repeat after me:
An AI JEDI Programmer’s Oath
I swear by Tim Berniers Lee, the founder of the digital world as we know it, and Google, and Microsoft and Amazon, his spiritual children, and all the other cyber gods and goddesses as my witnesses, that, according to my ability and judgement, I will keep this Oath and this contract for my entire career.
I will hold all of the ethical programmers who have gone before me in the highest regard, and I will be a credit to their legacy. I will always freely share my own acquired programming knowledge and wisdom with those who will come after me, just as I have learned from those who came before me.
I solemnly commit to posting all of my algorithms on Open Source platforms so that nobody will ever wonder how my AI’s were trained.
I will use only training data that verifiably embodies the principles of our JEDI ethos: Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
I will never unleash an AI in the public sphere that has the potential to do harm, even if this means that I never publish a single AI.
I will not claim to be an ethicist. I will always consult with those are properly trained in this regard to properly assess the potential of my work.
For every project on which I work, I will participate if and only if, after consulting with ethicists, I believe that the benefits of the project outweigh any and all potential risks to participants in the digital community of which we are all a part. I promise to respect the ecosystem of that community at all times.
So long as I maintain this Oath faithfully and without corruption, may it be granted to me to partake of life fully and the practice of my art, gaining the respect of all people for all time. However, should I transgress this Oath and violate it, may the opposite be my fate.
Directed Newsfeed
Date: March 25, 2052
Recipient List: All non-leisure citizen currently identifying with the professions previously known as ‘Bartender’, ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Ride Share Driver’
Headline: The Drudgery Comes to an End
Over 35 years since the disastrous launch of the chatbot known as Tay, Microsoft has announced today that their new chatbot, Taytoo, is a resounding success. Live for over 72 hours, Taytoo has not created a single phrase that might be considered hate speech, and they have not added any new words to their vocabulary that would be considered derogatory to any member of society. Taytoo has held over 17 million conversations in the final phase of release, all of which have been positive in tone. Special interest groups have each reacted in a predictable manner.
Cyberethicists are hailing this achievement as a direct result of the recently imposed Programmer’s Oath. “I’m thrilled!”, is the only comment we could get from the President of the Programmers’ Guild. Which is hardly surprising as it definitely appeared during our conversation that there was a significant celebration underway in the Guild Palace. Last year critics panned the first ever administration of the so-called JEDI Oath as an ineffective gimmick. But it would seem that the first social AI produced entirely by sworn members of Guild is going to prove the haters wrong.
Most important to you, bartenders and drivers, is the news that you will finally be able to relax. More than 10 years since you finally were able to stop physically attending to your customers in your bars and cars, now you can also stop attending to their social needs through your avatars. No longer must you ‘lend an ear’ to endless prattle about kids, weather, and the ennui of leisure. Pack away your inanities and schedule that long awaited uninterrupted month long VR immersion in Tahiti. You can finally join the leisure class and learn to air your own complaints while you drink synthol at the bar. Taytoo is ready to pick up the load and provide the all of the chitchat that passengers and drinkers require.
Teachers and psychologists hang on, hopefully your turn is coming soon!
References
Hariri, Y. N. (2017). Reboot for the AI revolution. Nature International Weekly Journal of Science, 550(7676),