Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, and Animal Rights

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering AI capabilities, autonomous systems, ethics of cheating, moral philosophy, animal testing, factory farming, speciesism, and moral individualism.

Generalist AI Systems

Artificial intelligence systems that do not need to be programmed by people, but instead teach themselves.

Strong AI vs. Weak AI

Strong AI is artificial intelligence that possesses conscious experiences, whereas Weak AI does not possess conscious experiences.

Predictive Recidivism

The use of AI algorithms in the criminal justice system to forecast whether an offender will commit another crime after being released, or to predict if an infant will commit a felony by age $20$.

Autonomous Drone Warfare

Military drones operating on AI that can identify and kill targets without human intervention, capable of faster decisions, enduring greater physical stress, and lacking mental trauma.

COMPAS Algorithm

A criminal justice risk-assessment software system identified as racially biased and only approximately $20\%$ accurate.

The Singularity

A hypothetical future event driven by runaway artificial intelligence growth that poses a potential risk of human extinction.

SAE Driving Automation Levels 0–2

Classifications by the Society of Automotive Engineers: Level 0 involves no automation; Level 1 provides driver assistance (e.g., adaptive cruise control, lane keeping); Level 2 features partial automation where the car controls steering and speed but still requires active human supervision.

SAE Driving Automation Levels 3–5

Level 3 provides conditional driving automation (requires driver fallback upon system failure); Level 4 provides high driving automation within specific domains without human supervision; Level 5 provides full automation capable of driving anywhere under all conditions without human intervention.

Three Laws of Robotics

Moral rules for artificial agents developed by Isaac Asimov (1920–1992): (1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; (2) A robot must obey human orders except where they conflict with the First Law; (3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as it does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

'Ought Implies Can' Principle

The ethical requirement that for an agent to have a moral obligation to perform an action, the agent must realistically possess the capacity to execute it.

The Trolley Problem

A moral dilemma introduced by Philippa Foot (1920–2010) comparing a runaway trolley—where turning the switch kills one person instead of five—to a transplant surgeon who considers killing one healthy patient to harvest organs to save five.

Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE)

An ethical framework permitting an action that has both a good and an unintended bad effect if: (1) the action itself is morally good or neutral; (2) the bad effect is foreseen but not positively intended; (3) the good effect flows directly from the action and not via the bad effect; and (4) the good effect is sufficiently desirable to justify allowing the bad effect.

Strategic Bomber vs. Terror Bomber

A classic DDE example: the strategic bomber destroys a munitions factory intending to dismantle military production while merely foreseeing civilian casualties; the terror bomber actively intends civilian deaths to terrify the population into surrender, violating DDE condition 2.

The Closeness Problem

A major objection to the Doctrine of Double Effect showing that an agent's mental intentions can be redescribed in arbitrary ways to eliminate intentional wrongdoing (e.g., intending only to move arms forward in the Bridge Example rather than intending to kill the pedestrian).

Killing vs. Letting Die (KLD)

The moral thesis stating that actively killing a person is inherently worse than letting another person die, because killing actively violates an individual's negative right to life.

Ring of Gyges

Plato's myth of an invisibility ring used to explore moral behavior when an individual faces no possibility of getting caught, applied to illustrate that cheaters fundamentally harm themselves in quantifiable ways.

Transferable Skills

Broad cognitive capabilities cultivated through higher education—such as critical logic, reading comprehension, understanding probabilities, and conducting high-quality research—that remain valuable across diverse fields, in contrast to narrow job training.

Natural vs. Artificial Bias

A cognitive bias leading people to view natural substances as inherently better and safer than artificial ones (with $20\%$ preferring natural drugs despite lower efficacy and safety), while ignoring lethal natural toxins like Botulinum toxin and snake venom.

Animal Welfare Act

A United States federal statute regulating animal experimentation that protected $791{,}546$ animals in 2019, but explicitly excludes rats and mice, which constitute roughly $25\text{ million}$ research animals annually.

LD50 Toxicity Test

A laboratory procedure in which animals are force-fed escalating quantities of a substance until $50\%$ of the test subjects die.

Draize Eye Irritancy Test

A standard toxicological test conducted on conscious rabbits to assess the acute irritation or corrosive damage of chemicals applied directly into their eyes.

Battery Cages

Small enclosures in factory farms providing only $67\text{ square inches}$ of space per hen, inducing extreme stress, cannibalism, debeaking, and heat stress causing $3\text{--}15\%$ mortality.

Principle of Equality

Peter Singer's utilitarian principle asserting that any being with the capacity to experience pleasure or suffering has interests that must count equally in moral calculations, regardless of race, sex, or species.

Feed Conversion Inefficiency

An agricultural reality cited by Singer where producing $1\text{ lb}$ of red meat requires feeding an animal approximately $20\text{ lbs}$ of corn per acre, demonstrating the inefficiency of meat production relative to world hunger prevention.

The Harvest Argument

An objection to ethical vegetarianism arguing that commercial field harvesting accidentally kills wild field animals (with estimates suggesting up to $1.8\text{ billion}$ fatalities), countered by uncertain statistics and proposals for safer harvesting methods.

Conscientious Omnivorism

An alternative to full vegetarianism that seeks to eliminate animal suffering by consuming free-range eggs, free-grazing animals, meat that would otherwise be wasted, or genetically engineering farm animals to lack pain sentience.

Non-Animal Substitutes (Eytex and Corrositex)

In vitro testing alternatives developed to replace live animal experimentation for ocular and dermal toxicity evaluations.

The Is/Ought Distinction

A fundamental philosophical barrier asserting that scientific descriptions of nature ('is') are strictly descriptive, whereas ethics is prescriptive ('ought'), meaning moral obligations cannot be logically derived from biological facts.

Unqualified Speciesism

The moral doctrine that biological membership in a specific species (such as Homo sapiens) is itself intrinsically morally relevant, making humans count more than non-human animals.

Person vs. Human

A philosophical distinction where a 'human' is a biological creature possessing human genetic code (including corpses, skin cells, and brain-dead patients), while a 'person' is an entity possessing moral rights (which could theoretically include extraterrestrials, Vulcans, or conscious machines).

Ring Species

A continuous series of neighboring populations (such as herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls) that can interbreed with adjacent groups but cannot interbreed where the two ends of the loop overlap, demonstrating that biological species boundaries are non-discrete and arbitrary.

Qualified Speciesism

The view that species membership itself is not intrinsically morally relevant, but serves as a convenient proxy because it correlates with morally important traits such as intelligence or moral autonomy.

Moral Individualism

The view formulated by James Rachels stating that how an entity ought to be treated depends strictly on its individual characteristics (such as sentience or the capacity to suffer), rather than on group membership or species averages.

Four Stages of Anthropocentrism Breakdown

The historical transition in moral philosophy: (1) anthropocentrism placing humans at the physical and moral center; (2) astronomical abandonment of physical centrality; (3) Darwinian questioning of traditional morality; (4) complete rejection of speciesism in favor of Moral Individualism.