We have long become accustomed to relying on GPS navigation to assist us in driving, and gradually others have been added to this system; so today, as we drive, we converse with different forms of voice assistants, to have them read us messages, activate functions, or call someone. After Siri and Alexa, we should therefore not be surprised by the advance of Microsoft’s Copilot, or Bill Gates’ prediction that in a few years we will all have a personal assistant. In fact, the killer application of operational AI projects-the cutting edge of AI development-is the generation of AI-enabled digital assistants, especially in the professional sphere. Returning to navigators, human and artificial, if we stay in the field of driving surely we can find both wrong or even irresponsible human decisions, such as that of Commander Schettino at the helm of the cruise ship Concordia, and cases of software errors of Boeing flights that crashed to the ground.
No one and nothing turns out to be infallible in governing physical reality, so doubts remain, but the emerging trend seems to be in favor of artificial assistants. And to what extent will we be willing to be assisted? From professional to behavioral assistance, it is a short step: it is not so difficult to imagine artificial assistants for managing our assets, personal looks, or social bon ton. The evolution of Tinder could even spill over into sentimental and erotic assistants. And here it becomes increasingly evident that this new course leads humanity to question issues that until now were dormant, cradled in conventions and shared rules and established in ethics and common sense.
The term Ethos in Greek, from which we derive the word ethics, has a rather broad sense; it is not only about morality, but more generally about behavior and living. So Ethos is not only the code of ethics, but has common roots with the behaviors of everyday life. An area in which, until a few generations ago (our grandparents) the main support was religious ethics, which regulated our actions down to the intimate. The “spiritual assistants” of Christian Europe were the Bible and the behavior patterns of the saints. The presence in stores of APPs such as “Talk to Jesus” is a first significant indicator of a possible encroachment of Artificial Intelligence into the spiritual realm of ethics and wisdom.
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