The Virtuous Machine - Old Ethics for New Technology?
  Modern AI and robotic systems are characterized by a high and ever-increasing
level of autonomy. At the same time, their applications in fields such as
autonomous driving, service robotics and digital personal assistants move
closer to humans. From the combination of both developments emerges the field
of AI ethics which recognizes that the actions of autonomous machines entail
moral dimensions and tries to answer the question of how we can build moral
machines. In this paper we argue for taking inspiration from Aristotelian
virtue ethics by showing that it forms a suitable combination with modern AI
due to its focus on learning from experience. We furthermore propose that
imitation learning from moral exemplars, a central concept in virtue ethics,
can solve the value alignment problem. Finally, we show that an intelligent
system endowed with the virtues of temperance and friendship to humans would
not pose a control problem as it would not have the desire for limitless
self-improvement.
