Ethics is a philosophical study of moral principles, exploring what is right and wrong, good and bad, and how people should act. Ethics guides people through reason and standards rather than just feelings, laws, or popular opinion. Ethics involves developing personal moral codes and societal norms for a just life.
Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence in machines, enabling them to learn, reason, perceive, solve problems, and make decisions, often by identifying patterns in vast datasets, with applications ranging from Siri and Alexa to self-driving cars and medical diagnostics.
Key components of artificial intelligence include machine learning and neural networks with the goal of creating systems that can perform tasks requiring human-like cognitive functions.
Is artificial intelligence (AI) ethics the study of ethics from an AI perspective or is it the ethical study of artificial intelligence? I argue that how it is perceived is not relevant. The question is, can you control the crowd and the outcome via the application of an AI-generated code of conduct or via code of conduct for artificial intelligence.
How should the ethicist look at herself? The ethicist should look at herself as the middle of the top-down apparatus. The ethicist takes her orders from the top where such orders are based on what she sees going on with the masses and how the top perceives the masses should behave in order for the top to maintain its position.
The masses provide the ethicist with information while the top provide the ethicist with direction.
The bottom 99% may provide the ethicist with some insights as to their mood, capabilities, and wants. These moods, capabilities, and wants may provide a guide for what the ethicist may recommend to the top one percent. But in the end, it is the top one percent that provides the direction.
We should be mindful that while the faces on the bottom may change, the number of faces will not. There will be inequity in the numbers. The bottom 99% may expect the top one percent to act in the bottom’s good favor, but the bottom should be aware after thousands of years of history that the bottom’s numbers will stay the same.
What then is AI ethics? AI ethics is messaging to the lower 99% that they are to behave in a manner that keeps the one percent in an advantageous position. AI is just a description of the source of the ethics. AI could be replaced with “stone intelligence”, “fifties intelligence”, etc.
The bottom line behind these terms is “intelligence.”
Alton Drew
11 December 2025
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