Ethics, Astrobiology & Machine Life: Ethical Considerations for Living Organisms Found Off-Planet or Created: Ideas from Astrobiologists and Computer Scientists

Abstract

Prudence demands a pre-contact appraisal of ethical requirements towards living organisms as planetary science and astrobiology continue to move forward. Likewise, advances in artificial intelligence may mean that it will be necessary to have ethical guidelines in place for machine life. A novel framework for studying complementary ethical perspectives is presented along with results obtained by questionnaire and discussion with astrobiologists and computer scientists currently working in these areas. Outcomes include promoting the work of these professionals and their self-reflection, plus recommendations for policy-makers and relevant lesson plans for the classroom, plus the following inferences: Ethical perspectives based on personal, social, cultural, ecological, or quantitative themes may be orthogonal to each other. Moreover, psychometric analysis can be applied in a way that divides people into groups, and this analysis may create further social division. Technological issues such as the development of autonomous machines or discovering extraterrestrial life forms come with a responsibility that is parallel to the care that creating offspring engenders—and a more global discussion is warranted. Notwithstanding, innovation in information technology is associated with a flowering of imaginative ethical considerations that predate some of the technologies that they address. These imaginative ethics may become superfluous with time, whereas innovations in technology that impact the physical environment more directly often predate the development of relevant ethics. These relevant ethics address challenges only in hindsight. Thus, machine life and extraterrestrial life are likely to have different ethical trajectories.