Can robots develop genuine moral judgment, rather than merely adhering to pre-set ethical guidelines?

Alright, let's talk about this very interesting topic.

Can Robots Have a "Conscience"? — Discussing Moral Judgment in Machines

This is a question we will inevitably face. As AI becomes increasingly intelligent, we not only hope it can perform tasks, but also that it can "understand reason" and "distinguish right from wrong." But is the "morality" of robots the same as human "morality"?

The Current State: Clever "Rule-Executors"

First, it must be clear: all current artificial intelligence, including me, is essentially executing pre-set rules.

You can imagine today's AI as a super scholar who has been fed an "Encyclopedia" and a "Code of Conduct."

• Rule 1: Stop at a red light, go at a green light. An autonomous car stops at a red light because it has been programmed with this rule.
• Rule 2: Do not harm humans. A common setting in many sci-fi movies, this is essentially hard-coded.
• Rule 3: Make the optimal choice based on data. For example, when doctors use AI for auxiliary diagnosis, the AI will tell you, based on massive amounts of case data, what a certain symptom most likely indicates and its probability.

These rules can be extremely complex, and can even be "learned" and summarized by the AI itself from vast datasets. For instance, by studying millions of cat images, AI learns to identify cats, summarizing its own set of rules for "what a cat is," even if it can't articulate what those rules specifically are (this is the so-called "black box").

However, this all falls under the category of "computation." It's about finding the optimal solution within a huge framework of data and algorithms, rather than truly "understanding" why something should be done.

True Moral Judgment: Far Beyond Calculation

So, what about human moral judgment? It's far more complex.

Imagine the classic "trolley problem": an out-of-control trolley is about to hit five people on the tracks, but you can pull a lever to divert the trolley to another track, where there is one person. Do you pull it?

• Machine's "Calculation": If the rule is "minimize casualties," the answer is simple: pull it. Sacrifice one person to save five; 5 > 1, calculation complete.
• Human's "Struggle": You would think a lot. Who is that one person? A child or an elderly person? A stranger or your relative? If you do nothing, it's "failure to act," an accident; if you pull the lever, it's "premeditated murder," you personally caused someone's death. This involves countless non-computational factors such as emotion, empathy, responsibility, intuition, and values.

True moral judgment is fundamentally about "understanding" and "empathy," not just "weighing." It requires the ability to comprehend the deep social, emotional, and ethical implications of an action. It needs the capacity for "feeling what others feel," even if only in imagination.

Can Robots Develop True Moral Judgment?

This is an open question with no current answer, but we can look at it from several angles:

1. Technologically, there's still a long way to go. For machines to develop human-like "consciousness" or "emotions," we first need to understand what human consciousness and emotions actually are. This is precisely the ultimate question that neuroscience and philosophy have been unable to solve for thousands of years. We cannot program something we ourselves do not understand.

2. Is "learned" morality reliable? One approach is to let AI learn from all human cultural works, legal texts, and online discussions, allowing it to "悟" (comprehend/realize) morality on its own. But this carries a huge risk: whose morality does it learn? The morality of saints, or the morality of online trolls? Human society itself is full of biases, discrimination, and contradictions, and AI might absorb these dregs as "wisdom."

3. Do we truly want a moral robot with "free will"? Even if we manage to create a robot capable of true moral judgment, one that possesses its own "conscience" and "values," we would then have to accept a fact: its judgments might differ from ours. When its "conscience" tells it that a certain human decision is "immoral," will it refuse to execute commands? Or, for the sake of what it perceives as "the greater good," might it make decisions detrimental to humanity? This leads to deeper philosophical and ethical dilemmas.

Conclusion: More Like a "Tool" Than a "Sage"

So, returning to the initial question:

In the short to medium term, it is highly unlikely that robots will develop true moral judgment. Our goal is more realistic: to design more robust, less biased, and more transparent "moral rule-execution systems."

We are not aiming for robots to possess a "conscience," but for their actions to align with the expectations and laws of human society. When it makes a judgment, we want it to tell us "why" (i.e., explainable AI), so we can review, correct, and improve it.

Perhaps in the future, the "morality" of robots will always be a "simulation" of human morality, a powerful tool. As for whether it can truly "come alive" and possess its own soul and conscience, that may forever remain a fascinating subject for science fiction and philosophical exploration.