Ethics has long been classified into different schools: utilitarian (harm reduction) and consequentialist (only the outcome, not the motive matters) schools see the world quite differently from virtue ethics. Drawing on Aristotle and Augustine, this last one has tended to be where religious ethics land — not, as in the caricature, keeping a ledger of rights and wrongs on some eternal scoreboard, but focusing on what kind of people we are becoming. (See James Mumford’s essay on Terrence Malick for more detail on this).

The AI ethics field is currently mainly circling round the first two; consequentialist risk management and utilitarian calculus. According to tech writer Tom Chatfield, there is a global consensus emerging around five ethical principles: transparency, justice and fairness, nonmaleficence, responsibility, and privacy.

All of these are laudable, but except justice, none are recognisable as virtues. It is clear that machines can learn better and faster than we can, and in our engagement with them we are ourselves changed. I wonder if there is an opportunity here to help us think through who we, not just the machines we rely on, are becoming?

Why not add a more distinctive virtue ethics strand to the conversation? What might virtual virtues be? Could courage, or love, or patience, be part of the ‘ethical data’ we are feeding them? An algorithmic solution to the problem of the human heart seems unlikely of course, but in the attempt,  we might just grow closer to the good ourselves.

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Elizabeth Oldfield is the former head of Theos. Her writing has appeared in the FT, Prospect and The Times. Her Twitter handle is @esoldfield

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