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Lesson Plan
With the proliferation of artificial limbs and body parts many humans
are becoming more like machines (cyborgs), and the development of artifical
intelligence seems to be making machines seem more like humans.What does
this mean for ethics, politics and citizenship in contemporary societies?
These lesson ideas explore such questions with a view to extending and
enriching students' understandings of civic responsibility, citizenship
and democratic processes.
Through these activities students will:
- appreciate the
difficulties of making unambiguous distinctions between humans and other
entities such as cyborgs and artificial intelligences
- consider ethical
questions arising from relationships between humans, cyborgs and artificial
intelligences
- interact with
simple artificial intelligence programs
- critically appraise
examples of attempts to formulate a Cyborg Bill of Rights and the possibilities
of extending such rights to artificial intelligences
- clarify their
understandings of the concept of citizenship and how it is defined and
determined.
Teacher preparation
This lesson is best done in circumstances where students have ready
access to the Internet. They should work in groups of two or three with
each group having computer access. Check the sites you want students to
use beforehand, especially the artificial intelligence web games and sites.
In addition to those suggested in the resource and reference lists above,
there are several other AI and chatbot sites that could be used equally
effectively. Some students might already be familiar with some of these
sites.
Introduction
Conduct a brief discussion with the class to establish students' existing
understandings of cyborgs and artificial intelligences. Many students
will be familiar with fictional cyborgs, robots and androids from movies
and TV shows and it might be useful for the class to brainstorm for examples
(recent movies include AI: Artificial Intelligence, Bicentennial Man and
Inspector Gadget). In small groups, ask students to respond to this question:
| It is relatively common for people to be fitted
with artificial limbs. It is also possible for a person to be fitted
with an artificial stomach, heart, kidneys and skin, heart and brain
pacemakers, implanted corneal lenses and hearing aids, radar devices
replacing sight and many other artificial body parts and organs. Is
there any point that might be reached in replacing an individual's
body parts where you might be tempted to say that the individual is
no longer 'human'? |
Depending on the age and maturity of the students, you might wish to
draw their attention to real cyborgs such as Stephen Hawking and Christopher
Reeve and to ask if people who deliberately modify or 'sculpt' their bodies-such
as Michael Jackson-should also be regarded as cyborgs. Information about
both-including their respective biotechnological modifications and/or
dependencies-is readily available on the Internet.
Display the overhead projection transparency about Cyborgs and the issues
surrounding them. Discuss these with the students.
Artificial citizens?
Introduce Men in Khaki. If students are unfamiliar
with the series, tell them that one of the characters in this episode
is Virgil, an artificial intelligence (AI). Ask students to take particular
note of the ways in which Virgil's 'behaviour' in the episode resembles
human behaviours.
View Men in Khaki
Following the video presentation, ask students in their groups to compare
their notes on Virgil's behaviour and other aspects of the episode by
responding to these questions:
- What specific
aspects of Virgil's behaviour resemble those of an intelligent organism,
such as a human? In what ways is he unlike a human?
- From what you
presently understand about artificial intelligence systems, how plausible
is Virgil? To the best of your knowledge, what sorts of things does
Virgil do in this episode that existing artificial intelligence systems
cannot do?
- Consider Colonel
Winter's plans for Virgil and the reaction of the Crash Zone kids as
outlined in this dialogue:
| WINTER:
…an Artificial Intelligence of this nature is vital to National
Security. We'd strip it down, remove any personality, program it
to act without compassion. It would be capable of making thousands
of strategic battlefield decisions per second. It would be unbeatable
in any combat scenario…
MARCELLO: It's
unbelievable!
RAM: They can't
use Virg like that!
PI: They'll
destroy his personality if we let them!
BEC: Use Virgil to fight wars? Not a chance!
Should Military
Intelligence have the right to destroy the 'personality' of an Artificial
Intelligence? Give reasons for and against.
Extension actvity
You might also wish students to consider the ethics of Winter's
threat to use an EMP-electromagnetic pulse generator-to wipe the
memories of Catalyst computer systems. This should be discussed
in the context of stereotyping-and even demonising-the military.
Students should be encouraged to consider if the Winter character
is portrayed fairly or is a crude caricature of an army officer.
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- Penny says to Mathew: 'Virgil's not just a
program, Dad, he's like part of the family…'
Would you be likely
to consider Virgil (or an AI with similar capabilities) to be part of
your family? How 'intelligent' does an artificial intelligence have
to be before you would be prepared to grant it similar rights (and responsibilities)
to human citizens?
- What would a machine,
such as a computer, have to do to convince you that it should be given
similar rights to those we routinely give to humans?
Ask groups to share
their responses to the above questions with the class as a whole.
Testing artificial intelligence
In their responses to the last question above some students might suggest
a variation on the Turing Test, named after computer scientist Alan
Turing who developed it as a 'thought experiment' during the 1950s.
Turing reasoned that a machine should be regarded as being intelligent
if it could 'fool' a human into believing it was human.
There are a number of websites that explain the Turing Test in varying
degrees of detail (see Resources above) and students could be encouraged
to search for some of them. It is probably sufficient to give the students
the AI Worksheet.
After students complete
the AI Worksheet ask them to compare the relative 'intelligence' of at
least two of the programs. For example, how quickly can they 'fool' each
program into revealing its limitations?
| An activity that worked well with a year 7 trial group is to play
20Q.net using 'artificial intelligence' as the 'answer'. The program
initially asks, 'Think of something and I will guess...' and the first
question is 'Is it classified as? Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Other,
Unknown'. Working in pairs or small groups students need to discuss
and reach consensus about how to classify and describe an AI in response
to each question. This helps to clarify students' understandings about
the nature and design of information processing programs. 20Q.net
already 'knows' what artificial intelligence is, so if students appear
to 'fool' the program on this item it means that they are classifying
and describing artificial intelligence in a different way from the
program (that is, from the program's point of view the students would
appear to be 'cheating'; under these circumstances the program will
challenge players and point out where its answers differed from theirs). |
A cyborg / AI bill of rights?
Ask students (in pairs or groups) to compare the two versions of a Cyborg
Bill of Rights:
Understanding Gray's
Bill of Rights depends to some extent on familiarity with US Constitutional
Amendments, but its basic premises can be discerned without any detailed
knowledge of them. Murray's Bill of Rights is more straightforward and
could be used by itself with younger students.
However, even if
students do not refer directly to Gray's Bill of Rights, you should draw
attention to his questions about defining citizenship:
| Citizenship
Defined: This is the hard one. How old the human must be, and
how mentally competent to be a citizen, is an old debate. Cyborg technologies
will complexify this confusion incredibly. Now it just isn't how mature
the human but how human the cyborg? How machinic can a citizen be?
How many voters in a cyborg pod of multiple bodies? How bright the
AI? How bright the dog? Whether or not one is mentally competent isn't
just an issue applying to injured humans, it covers machines, posthumans,
and enhanced beasts. Any aliens that ever visit as well, if you get
down to it, although it doesn't seem to be as pressing an issue as
cyborg citizenship is, in my opinion. |
It might be worth
pointing out to students that tests for citizenship in the past have ranged
from gender and class (e.g. until recently even in Western societies only
property-owning males could vote), through literacy, to the current situation
where birthright assumes eventual citizenship unless it is forefeited
as a result of misdeeds (see professional development article by Harry
Phillips in the teacher reference list).
Secondary students
in particular could also compare the articles in one or both of the Cyborg
Bills of Rights with the articles in the United
Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UN Declaration
has thirty articles whereas Gray's Bill of Rights has ten and Murray's
Bill of Rights has only five.
- Which human rights
are not reflected in the Cyborg Bills of Rights?
- Does this suggest
that the Cyborg Bills of Rights need additional articles?
Ask students working in groups to consider the desirability of each
article of Murray's (and/or Gray's) Cyborg Bill of Rights.
- Which of these
should be extended to AIs?
- If these rights were protected by law in the imagined world of Crash
Zone, how might the script of Men in Khaki
have been different? Which articles would have direct consequences
for Virgil? How would the human characters be affected? In what ways?
- Write a 60 second 'speech' for Virgil to deliver via the internet
to his fellow AIs. The speech should begin with the words 'Cybercitizens
of the world unite!…' and should end with Virgil urging all cyborgs
and AIs to lobby the United Nations to adopt a Universal Declaration
of Cybercitizen Rights. One member of each group should 'perform' this
speech for the whole class.
Teacher references
Yahoo directory of Artificial
Intelligence Web Games
How my program
passed the Turing Test
BotSpot. ChatBots
Gray, Chris Hables (2001) Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age
(New York and London: Routledge).
Gray, Chris Hables (1997) The ethics and politics of cyborg embodiment:
citizenship as a hypervalue.
Cultural Values 1 (2): 252-258.
Citizenship:
an historical perspective by Harry C.J. Phillips
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