Ethical Dilemma - Chapter 9

The use of artificial Intelligence and Expert System

A couple of years ago Patricia returned to the Uk to take up an academic position at British University. She had been out of the Uk for cover 20 years working at universities at numbers of countries, and had a good professsional employment record. She decided to open a bank account with one of the large banks that had a branch on the campus.

She met the bank manager, was given the necessary forms, and duly completed them. A few days later she returned to the bank to open her account. much to her surprise shw was told that she could only have a cash account. i.e she would not be given any cards, cheque book, or the like nor could she have any overdraft facility.

Patricia again met with the bank manager as she naturally felt there must have been some misunderstanding. Key points here are that she already had a bank account at the UK since her student days, she owed no money on credit cards or like, was a UK citizen and had a good track record with banks overseas.In addition, her salary from the university was to be paid into her account each month.

Patricia again met with the bank manager as she naturally felt there must have been some misunderstanding. Key points here are that she already had a bank account in the UK since her student days, she owed no money on credit cards or the like, was a UK citizen, and had a good track record with banks overseas. In addition, her salary from the university was to be paid into her account each month.

Despite her explaining these points, the bank manager was adamant that she could only have a cash account. When asked to explain this decision, the bank manager indicated that it was not in fact her decision, but a decision made by an expert system. The bank always used this computer technology when making decisions about opening accounts for new clients, and in fact the bank manager could not overrule the restrictions that the expert system imposed. In short, the expert system was empowered in the decision-making process to such an extent that it actually replaced the human decision-making process. The bank manager went to explain that the problem was the expert system had not previously encountered a person with Patricia’s particular background, and the key point to the computer was the extensive years of residency outside the UK.

To what extent do you think it is appropriate to replace the human decision-making process with computer technologies such an expert systems?

• It is not appropriate to do the decision making based on what was the program installed. There are a lot of things to be considered upon doing the decision making, like listening to others and understanding their thoughts. If we look onto Patricia's experiences on handling transactions she might be capable since she has a good feedback with tracking records overseas only with man to man transaction. But doing over the computer might be confusing for her since she don't have the full control over the transaction that might lead to business losses.

During the conversation Patricia asked the bank manager whether she felt that it was appropriate for the expert system to be empowered in this way. The response she obtained was that it was a great idea because computers do not make mistakes. What do you think about this comment?

• On the first thought, the manager might really believe that he is making more money using the expert's system; but in fact he's not. He is not actually minding the feedback of his clients with the services they were giving. Hence, if I were in Patricia's case, it not enough to just consider the the managers explanation only. Probably, I won't build a trust to a person who's only basis of explanation came from the expert system. 

Do computers make mistakes?

• No, computers cannot do any mistake unless they were manipulated to do so. If there were error with the transaction, one main reason is that the instruction being embedded in the system is not capable of doing the task right, or worst, the system was being intentionally manipulated to make the mistake. It's always the developer that must be blamed since he/she was the one who created the instructions being inputted on the computer system for manipulation.

Is any computerized system free from mistakes?

• No, there will be times that it can create mistake because of some instructions being manipulated.

Should we be educating people to believe that computers are infallible – are computers infallible?

• Computers are reliable to an extent, because it has its limitations. It's not always infallible since it sometimes commits error during deployment.

What do you think are the ultimate ramifications of believing in infallible computer systems?

• That computers were not always infallible since there is a possibility of malfunction. Having an expert system may be better, but being dependent to what it says must not always be considered that decision making must always dwell with critical analysis; hence it needs critical thinking of a human mind.