Ethics in Artificial Intelligence : How Relativism is Still Relevant

Abstract: This essay tries to demarcate and analyse Artificial Intelligence ethics. Going away from the traditional distinction in normative, meta, and applied ethics, a different split is executed, inspired by the three most prominent schools of thought: deontology, consequentialism, and Aristotelian virtue ethics. The reason behind this alternative approach is to connect all three schools back to ancient Greek philosophy. Having proven that the majority of arguments derive from some ancient Greek scholars (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle), a new voice is initiated into the discussion, Protagoras the Sophist. A big advocate of -the later conceived- humanism and relativism, Protagoras is used as a prism to examine a new ethical model that is based on the personalization of agents. In other words, even though theories of objectivity have overflown contemporary discussions of finding a robust ethical model for Artificial Intelligence agents, there is potential in a subjective model, personalised after each and every user.