Mimetic Models: Ethical Implications of AI that Acts Like You

TL;DR

This paper explores the ethical and social implications of mimetic AI models that simulate individual behaviors for various applications, emphasizing the need for a framework to address potential impacts on all stakeholders involved.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive framework for analyzing ethical issues related to mimetic AI models that replicate individual decision-making and behavior.

Findings

Identifies key ethical concerns for different stakeholders.

Proposes scenarios for responsible use of mimetic models.

Highlights potential social impacts of deploying personalized AI models.

Abstract

An emerging theme in artificial intelligence research is the creation of models to simulate the decisions and behavior of specific people, in domains including game-playing, text generation, and artistic expression. These models go beyond earlier approaches in the way they are tailored to individuals, and the way they are designed for interaction rather than simply the reproduction of fixed, pre-computed behaviors. We refer to these as mimetic models, and in this paper we develop a framework for characterizing the ethical and social issues raised by their growing availability. Our framework includes a number of distinct scenarios for the use of such models, and considers the impacts on a range of different participants, including the target being modeled, the operator who deploys the model, and the entities that interact with it.