There is no such thing as "ethical technology". A controlled fire can be used to cook food, repel predators, and torture enemies.
Commonly expressed opinion, and for a reason of course. But I have come to think that rather there is pretty much no such thing as 'morally neutral' technology. Everything lends itself more or less well to different purposes, and can, and often will, interact with an immensely complex society rife with morally loaded choices and actions. There was an eloquently presented thought experiment I heard many years ago, for which I have unfortunately forgotten the exact context, but I suspect it may be from former US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. (If anyone recognizes this one, I'd be grateful if you refresh my memory)
Play with the thought that someone comes to you and presents you a ground-breaking invention, namely a procedure to manufacture dirt cheap, compact atomic bombs. Nuclear weaponry needs no longer be beyond the means of even the humblest citizen. Well, that would be a stunning scientific and technological achievement. We should probably give this person the at the very least the Nobel Prize and an annual feast in their honor. Is that what would happen? No, more like it, we'd make sure we have all copies of the schematics and then lock him up in isolation and throw away the key.
It's an extreme case, naturally, but I think it's a neat illustration that there are powers whose properties have a profile which give them a completely predictably huge and horrifying potential for abuse and great difficulty to use for good. And conversely, arguably those which have very readily apparent beneficial uses and would be much harder to use for nefarious purposes, though that direction may be tempered somewhat by the fact that there are many more ways for something to be broken than to be whole.
I think what the article is saying (as compared to the title) is that a universally agreed upon as ethical AI cannot exist. But this seems obvious given that a universally agreed upon set of ethics does not exist.
>Depending upon your priorities, your ethical views will inevitably be incompatible with those of some other people in a manner no amount of reasoning will resolve.
If we say there is no such thing as an ethical A.I. because we cannot all agree upon a standard, then it seems we should also say there is no such thing as an ethical human.
Whereas an AI is a person of some sort (when speaking of generic AI, but also at the limited level of decision making of a less capable AI).
So one could legitimately ask whether there's an ethical AI.