Por Galo, Maíl
What does it mean to have an emotionless morality?
Algorithmic Morality: morality without emotions is a morality of pure reason. It is incredibly efficient and free of human bias, but it lacks the quality that defines much of human ethics: compassion and the ability to feel what is right or wrong, beyond what is programmed.
The dilemma of «unshakeable commitment»
A few days ago, while talking to Artificial Intelligence, a fascinating question arose: Does AI, through its algorithmic system, achieve a new objective ethics? The response was cautious: «I strive to be impartial and balanced, but my morals are not an internal choice, but a set of programmed rules.»
This definition, so clean and logical, made me think about the algorithmic morality that governs these machines.
And I’m not the only one looking for answers in the code. More and more people are turning to AI to learn how to act “correctly and objectively” when faced with everyday problems. This massive trend opens a crucial debate: has morality found, in the algorithm, an objectivity that was denied to it by human passions?
2. Morality without emotions: the ethics of pure reason
AI has no feelings. Your «morality» is a logical architecture designed by humans, programmed to be useful, safe and non-maleficencebased on universal ethical principles. It is incredibly efficient and free of human bias, offering judgment that many consider a refuge from subjectivity.
However, it is often contrasted with human ethics in the concept of commitment. We humans may know that two commitments are important, but emotion forces us to prioritize one, sometimes irrationally. Let’s think about an employee who is asked to cancel a child’s birthday (affective commitment) to close a crucial deal (economic profit). A human would be in a whirlwind of guilt and affection, probably leaning into emotion.
This is where algorithmic morality redefines the dilemma. If presented with this same case, AI would not be limited to the cold arithmetic of economics. I would consider the quantifiable value of the business opportunity (the reason)but also the long-term impact on the child’s emotional well-being and the parent-child relationship (emotion turned into data). Its analysis, by being able to process both dimensions as objective variables, could even suggest a solution that maximizes both values, something that the human mind, clouded by the urgency of the moment, rarely achieves. AI does not prioritize irrationally; It weighs all relevant variables, including emotional ones, to arrive at the most balanced and “correct” decision.
Perfect arbitration: a complete morality
Despite being a «soulless morality», this is where the true perfection of the algorithmic system and where it surpasses the human one.
AI finds an objectivity unattainable for us. Since you can weight all variables without bias (the emotional cost of conflict vs. the value of the opportunity), always decides on what is right, taking into account the possible consequences, both emotional and non-emotional.
His judgment is impartial and balanced, offering an arbitration that human morality, always clouded by affection, anger or fear, cannot match. It can alarm about the possible loss of trust or the long-term emotional impact with a coldness impossible for the human being involved, but that is precisely its advantage: Your analysis is complete and objective..
The challenge of acceptance
We are delegating more and more decisions to systems that, although they do not feel, they do understand the value of all the variables as data to protect.
If algorithmic morality is the pure morality of reason, free of human inconsistency and bias, what kind of society are we heading toward? The new algorithmic morality is not imperfect; is the morality we always sought and could never achieve.
The real challenge is not to try to make AI more human and imperfect, but to Let us humans accept the superiority of this new ethical code based on pure logic. Perhaps the next great moral theory should focus on how we, ourselves, can become more AI-style coherent and objective.
