Intelligent agents that help us vote better are on the way
Currently we are entering into the phase where AI is making it's impact on politics. During the Trump election we saw the growth of fake news, AI twitter bots, and AI journalism. In the near future we will all have access to AI assistants which will be able to analyze the facts whilst also understanding our self interest(goals), morality, and the law. This next generation of AI assistants may be in both centralized less than transparent forms and in decentralized blockchain enabled forms. The major question we have to now begin to ask is what impact this breed of AI will have on the 2018-2020 elections not just in the United States but world wide?
An AI assistant can also be considered as an autonomous agent. It can act on the behalf of the operator and become the part of their "digital body" and "extended mind". This AI assistant may not have the legal authority to directly vote on our behalf but it can research 24/7 and continuously update it's suggestion of who we should vote for.
The problem with centralized AI offering "assistance"
When a company like Apple, Google, or others offer a centralized solution we have to recognize that every company is biased. The bias comes from the fact that these are public companies with shareholders who are known, who can be pressured by the general public. So if Google were to for example offer a voting assistant which could suggest who we should vote for then politics could get involved where people cannot trust Google or it's advice. On the other hand if a decentralized AI exists which can offer AI assistant technology then that AI can truly be trusted to become the extended mind of the individual. That AI could suggest who an individual should vote for without the lack of transparency and risks of a centralized possibly manipulated version.
The importance of moral, ethical and legal efficiency
The final point I want to make is based on a previous post where I introduced the concept of legal efficiency. I defined legal efficiency:
The term legal efficiency is a term I choose to use to represent a measurable benefit whereby a project and or organization can achieve their goals with minimal legal costs. Legal costs can be measured in the form of legal risks (risk of lawsuit, regulatory risk, etc). In order for a project to be efficient the resources of the project must not be wasted and legal expenses cost a lot to projects.
Put more simply, if we are speaking of an intelligent agent then the intelligent agent is more legally efficient if it can get more done (achieve the objectives) with less red tape and or regulatory resistance. In essence if the intelligent agent can follow the law perfectly while also being able to complete your tasks then it's legal efficiency and your own legal efficiency increases as it can do more with less cost measured in terms of legal risks.
Legal efficiency alone isn't enough because it's not enough just to do what is legal. Reputation does matter and because of the importance of reputation there is a cost to being unethical and immoral. I distinguish a difference between "ethics" and "morality" for this discussion where ethics are the professional ethical standards, or societal ethical standards (what society expects you to do in a given situation) while morality is the personal opinion you hold on what is right and wrong.
An intelligent agent is ethically efficient if it is ethically aware, which would mean it would have to be aware of current public sentiment (public expectations), and on social norms. An intelligent agent which can be respectful of both public sentiment and social norms (both which are always changing) can avoid unnecessary conflicts (reduce costs) and the result is ethical efficiency.
An intelligent agent which is morally efficient is an intelligent agent which can accomplish the goals of the individual while also adhering as much as possible to personal morality also doing cost benefit analysis with regard to potential conflicts between personal morality, public sentiment (ethical standards), and the law. If an intelligent agent can somehow become smart enough to be as aligned as possible to the personal morality of the individual it's acting on the behalf of then it's morally efficient but of course this can be something hard to achieve.
So what can we have ultimately? We can have intelligent agents which ideally can become extensions of our mind and body, to help our actions become as moral, ethical and legal as possible whilst also accomplishing our goals. In a sense, more benefit with less risk to empower the individual to achieve their objectives.