AI Can Stop Mass Shootings, and More
This paper addresses the critical problem of preventing mass shootings, a significant societal issue, by applying AI-driven ethical reasoning. This is a blue-sky idea with no concrete numbers or proof of concept.
The paper proposes an AI system that can prevent mass shootings by employing ethical reasoning. The system is demonstrated through two simulations: one where the AI locks out a gun, saving lives, and another where it allows law enforcement to neutralize a threat.
We propose to build directly upon our longstanding, prior r&d in AI/machine ethics in order to attempt to make real the blue-sky idea of AI that can thwart mass shootings, by bringing to bear its ethical reasoning. The r&d in question is overtly and avowedly logicist in form, and since we are hardly the only ones who have established a firm foundation in the attempt to imbue AI's with their own ethical sensibility, the pursuit of our proposal by those in different methodological camps should, we believe, be considered as well. We seek herein to make our vision at least somewhat concrete by anchoring our exposition to two simulations, one in which the AI saves the lives of innocents by locking out a malevolent human's gun, and a second in which this malevolent agent is allowed by the AI to be neutralized by law enforcement. Along the way, some objections are anticipated, and rebutted.