(When) Can AI Bots Lie?

Abstract

The ability of an AI agent to build mental models can open up pathways for manipulating and exploiting the human in the hopes of achieving some greater good. In fact, such behavior does not necessarily require any malicious intent but can rather be borne out of cooperative scenarios. It is also beyond the scope of misinterpretation of intents, as in the case of value alignment problems, and thus can be effectively engineered if desired (i.e. algorithms exist that can optimize such behavior not because models were misspecified but because they were misused). Such techniques pose several unresolved ethical and moral questions with regards to the design of autonomy. In this paper, we illustrate some of these issues in a teaming scenario and investigate how they are perceived by participants in a thought experiment. Finally, we end with a discussion on the moral implications of such behavior from the perspective of the doctor-patient relationship.