If we do not rapidly make our systems ethical we are doomed.

Let's work toward several practical applications of the ERT (Ethical Regulator Theory) at various scales and in various sectors. I (Marc) will focus on neighborhoods. Maybe Kerry will focus on institutions of one type or another. Maybe Olaf will focus on banks. ERT praxis.

I will label my focus, "[[Practical Neighborhood Ethics]]" or PNE.

digraph { compound=true layout=dot rankdir=TB overlap=false concentrate=false bgcolor=lightblue //splines="" node [style=filled shape=box color=blue4 fontcolor=white]
label="Nine Dimensions of the Ethical Regulator Theorem"

Integrity [shape=hexagon] Transparency [shape=hexagon] Ethics [shape=hexagon] Purpose [shape=hexagon] Variety [shape=hexagon] Predictability [shape=hexagon] Truth [shape=hexagon] Intelligence [shape=hexagon] Influence[shape=hexagon]

"Knowledge\nand\nWisdom" [style=filled shape=circle color=white fontcolor=black] "Model of\nSystem" [style=filled shape=circle color=white fontcolor=black] "Prioritized\nGoals" [style=filled shape=circle color=white fontcolor=black] "Model of\nSelf" [style=filled shape=circle color=white fontcolor=black] "Model of\nAcceptable\nBehavior\nVALUES" [shape=circle style=filled color=white fontcolor=black] "Audit\nCapability" [shape=circle style=filled color=white fontcolor=black]

subgraph cluster1 {label="Effectiveness Subsystem" penwidth=3 Variety Intelligence Decision Truth "Model of\nSystem" Predictability "Model of\nSelf" Purpose "Prioritized\nGoals" "Knowledge\nand\nWisdom"} [label="Effectiveness\nCriteria"]

subgraph cluster2 {color=red penwidth=3 label="Ethics Subsystem" "Model of\nAcceptable\nBehavior\nVALUES" "Audit\nCapability" Ethics Integrity Transparency Exception Audit}

subgraph cluster3 {label="Environment" penwidth=3 Influence "External\nAuthority" "Regulated\nSystem"}

"Model of\nSystem" -> Transparency [ label="monitored by" ltail=cluster1 lhead=cluster2]

"Audit\nCapability" -> Transparency [label=enables]

Purpose -> Intelligence [label=informs] Exception [color=red] Decision [color=red]

Variety -> Intelligence [label=informs] Truth -> Intelligence [label=informs] Predictability -> Intelligence [label=informs] Decision -> Influence [label="Ethical Action\nor Truthful\nCommunication"]

Ethics -> Intelligence [label=informs] Ethics -> Integrity [label=informs]

Audit [style=filled shape=circle color=red fontcolor=white]
Transparency -> Integrity[label="informs"] Transparency -> Audit[label="writes"]

"Prioritized\nGoals" -> Purpose [label=defines]

"Regulated\nSystem" -> Truth [ltail=cluster2 label="Awareness of\nRegulated System\nand Environment"]

Influence ->"Regulated\nSystem" [label=affects] "Regulated\nSystem" [color=Green1 fontcolor=black]

Integrity -> Decision [label="can\nveto" color=red fontcolor=red] Intelligence -> Decision [label=makes]

"Knowledge\nand\nWisdom" -> Truth [label="contributes\nto"]

"Model of\nSystem" -> Predictability [label=provides]

"Model of\nSelf" -> Variety [label=provides]

"Model of\nAcceptable\nBehavior\nVALUES" -> Ethics [label=defines]

Integrity -> Exception [label="ethics\nviolated"] [color=red fontcolor=red] Exception -> "External\nAuthority" [color=red label=alerts fontcolor=red]

"External\nAuthority" [color=Green1 fontcolor=black] "External\nAuthority" -> "Regulated\nSystem" [label="has\nauthority\nover"] }

"Prioritized\nGoals" [style=rounded fontcolor=black]

"Prioritized\nGoals" -> Purpose [label=defines]

"Regulated\nSystem" -> Truth [ltail=cluster2 label="Awareness of\nRegulated System\nand Environment"]

Influence ->"Regulated\nSystem" [label=affects] "Regulated\nSystem" [color=Green1 fontcolor=black]

Integrity -> Decision [label="can\nveto" color=red fontcolor=red] Intelligence -> Decision [label=makes]

"Knowledge\nand\nWisdom" [style=rounded fontcolor=black ] "Knowledge\nand\nWisdom" -> Truth [label="contributes\nto"]

"Model of\nSystem" [style=rounded fontcolor=black] "Model of\nSystem" -> Predictability [label=provides]

"Model of\nSelf" [style=rounded fontcolor=black] "Model of\nSelf" -> Variety [label=provides]

Integrity -> Exception [label="ethics\nviolated"] [color=red fontcolor=red] Exception -> "External\nAuthority" [color=red label=alerts fontcolor=red]

"External\nAuthority" [color=Green1 fontcolor=black] "External\nAuthority" -> "Regulated\nSystem" [label="has\nauthority\nover"] }

Perhaps, a non-profit organization without any conflicts of interests could define appropriate standards and start an [[open source ethics coding project]] for the laws, regulations, and rules that are most urgently required by the ethically adequate systems that we try to construct. See page 13 of 35 in paper referenced below.

[[Effectiveness]] without [[Ethics]] is societal and planetary suicide. We are far down that path already! Here is an actionable life line. Study it. After some study play with this: [[Ethical Regulator Design]] exercise.

Ethical Regulators and Super-Ethical Systems by Mick Ashby W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, London, UK Cybernetics Society, London W5 2NQ, UK American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC 20052, USA Systems 2020, 8(4), 53; https://doi.org/10.3390/systems8040053

[https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/8/4/53 Download PDF]

[[Ethical Regulator Theorem]] Universality

Anyone who has the impression that ERT primarily applies to artificial intelligence, robots, self-driving vehicles, and autonomous weapons systems is urged to consider how the theorem can be applied to human systems that make decisions that affect people or the environment, such as organizations, corporations, education systems, government institutions, CEOs, or yourself.

Justice Stevens [13] provided an excellent example of identifying the ethical inadequacy of the “Citizens United” ruling: “The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.”, which implies that there is a pressing need to evaluate the ethical adequacy of the entire [[U.S. Supreme Court]] system.

Since the ethical regulator theorem can be applied to any system that is required to make ethical decisions, the nine ERT dimensions define a domain-independent abstraction layer that can be used to map between any regulated systems. This creates a vocabulary, or isomorphism, that allows practitioners in one domain to communicate meaningfully with practitioners in seemingly unrelated domains, and share insights and solutions, for example, across artificial intelligence, corporate governance, education systems, and designing consumer products.

Specialists in each domain can share their challenges and solutions to improving purpose, truth, variety, predictability, intelligence/strategy, influence, ethics, integrity, and transparency. For example, perhaps a cloud-based secure audit trail service that was developed for one specific domain can be used to help solve transparency and integrity in completely unrelated domains.