The Morality and Philosophy of the Sibyl System

[Dengar]

The assumption that free will exists means that people have to take responsibility for their actions. If free will doesn't exist, then responsibility automatically doesn't exist either. One simply can't exist without the other.


Personally, any method for escaping responsibility is twisted and deserves no respect.

[karice67]

Originally Posted by Dengar

The assumption that free will exists means that people have to take responsibility for their actions. If free will doesn't exist, then responsibility automatically doesn't exist either. One simply can't exist without the other.


Personally, any method for escaping responsibility is twisted and deserves no respect.

I agree with that in principle - I'd like to think that that's how I make my decisions, how I live my life.

However, I would like to ask:

What does 'taking responsibility' mean to you? The death penalty? Being incarcerated? etc?

And where and to what extent does the responsibility lie?

[Dengar]

To take responsibility is to acknowledge the actions you took and what they led to, and accept the consequences.

I'm not going to debate the death penalty here though, because that isn't what this is about.

[ArturEngel]

Originally Posted by karice67

I agree with that in principle - I'd like to think that that's how I make my decisions, how I live my life.

However, I would like to ask:

What does 'taking responsibility' mean to you? The death penalty? Being incarcerated? etc?

And where and to what extent does the responsibility lie?

It dosen't matter what kind of responsibility you take, you can't make people forgive or forget. People accept only sacrifices as an excuse, i would say.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Dengar

The assumption that free will exists means that people have to take responsibility for their actions. If free will doesn't exist, then responsibility automatically doesn't exist either. One simply can't exist without the other.


Personally, any method for escaping responsibility is twisted and deserves no respect.

Maybe take this back to the PP world. That five years old boy is locked up because Sibyl says he probably will become a criminal, which he obviously hasn't done yet. In this case, where does the boy's "freewill" and "responsibility" lie?

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

Maybe take this back to the PP world. That five years old boy is locked up because Sibyl says he probably will become a criminal, which he obviously hasn't done yet. In this case, where does the boy's "freewill" and "responsibility" lie?

One cannot be held responsible for being born with a biological predisposition to violence any more than one can be held responsible for being born with black hair and brown eyes. These are inborn traits. An individual cannot be held responsible for something he didn't choose.

But, after being made aware of these traits, and being told that there are possible ways to curb, if not "fix", these biological tendencies for anti-social behaviour, an individual can perhaps be expected to take these corrective measures, or be deemed deviant. I don't think I need to suggest the number of ways such expectations would be regarded as violations of human rights as we currently define them.

But I had highlighted a number of times the analogies to illustrate how the reasoning works. If a car breaks down because of faulty parts, what point is there in whipping it for failing to work? Shouldn't one make sure to perform regular checks, and to fix the parts before they break down?

If you are the "driver" of your body, and are told that parts of your body are breaking down and, as a result, you may end up harming other people, shouldn't you be held responsible for making sure you fix your parts?

[Dengar]

^Looks like I won't need to explain that one anymore. The above sums it up pretty nicely.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

But I had highlighted a number of times the analogies to illustrate how the reasoning works. If a car breaks down because of faulty parts, what point is there in whipping it for failing to work? Shouldn't one make sure to perform regular checks, and to fix the parts before they break down?

If you are the "driver" of your body, and are told that parts of your body are breaking down and, as a result, you may end up harming other people, shouldn't you be held responsible for making sure you fix your parts?

Now let's take that part back to your earlier post regarding Brian Dugan

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

We have a disturbing situation above, where an individual is clearly able to tell right from wrong, and yet he went ahead to do what was wrong anyway. Dugan, in this case, was exercising his "free will" to kill. Or was he? The science suggests that he is, in effect, mentally disabled, and therefore cannot be held fully responsible for his crime. The legal term is "diminished responsibility". But what does that even mean, because as a legal scholar would observe in the same documentary, all of us are prone to various kinds of brain abnormalities. Can we claim to have diminished responsibility because of brain abnormalities arising from alcohol consumption?

What are the implications of assuming that "free will" exists, in this case?

If people like Dugan (a car) did what they did (break down) because they were different from us (faulty parts), what point is there in whipping it for failing to work (take responsibility for their actions)?

Because we still don't have the luxury/technology of enabling the "driver" to be aware of his own situation, right? So the driver has no choice but to use his faulty car.

EDIT: Now, I don't mean people like Dugan shouldn't take responsibility (retribution for the victims!), but the point is, if Dugan's own body (in it's natural state, without drugs or any other intervention) suggests him to go around killing, where are you placing the responsibility on?

EDITEDIT: What actually disturbs me is Dengar's assertion that anything to escape responsibility is twisted and dis-respectable. Now imagine if one live as a citizen of an Empire who recently conquered a new territory and is imposing on every citizen to turn in every native they found to be round up in killing camps. Is it so depraved of the citizens to NOT want to follow this responsibility?

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

If people like Dugan (a car) did what they did (break down) because they were different from us (faulty parts), what point is there in whipping it for failing to work (take responsibility for their actions)?

Because we still don't have the luxury/technology of enabling the "driver" to be aware of his own situation, right? So the driver has no choice but to use his faulty car.

No, that's not quite what I meant. The central problem is about the extent to which we actually get to choose. Awareness or non-awareness doesn't change the fact that we operate machines that are prone to breaking down. Being aware, however, adds a burden of responsibility on the "driver" to do something to fix the problem.

The further question is whether we are actually the drivers of our bodies, or are, in fact, driven by our bodies. If we behave the way we do because of the way we are, to what extent can we be held responsible for our actions?

An individual is born a certain way. To what extent do we have the right to judge the actions that arise as a result of the way he is born?

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

EDIT: Now, I don't mean people like Dugan shouldn't take responsibility (retribution for the victims!), but the point is, if Dugan's own body (in it's natural state, without drugs or any other intervention) suggests him to go around killing, where are you placing the responsibility on?

On his family, his friends and his community. On his society. As James Fallon's evidence suggests, someone could be born with a criminal mind and yet not become a criminal. The trigger, Fallon observed, is an abusive environment.

That's all well and great until you realise that one doesn't get to choose his parents or the environment he grows up in.

Hence, perhaps, the creation of the Sibyl System, and an entirely new ethical system that requires people to take active responsibility for their psychological health, on the assumption that the failure to do so would lead to escalating criminal behaviour.

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

EDITEDIT: What actually disturbs me is Dengar's assertion that anything to escape responsibility is twisted and dis-respectable. Now imagine if one live as a citizen of an Empire who recently conquered a new territory and is imposing on every citizen to turn in every native they found to be round up in killing camps. Is it so depraved of the citizens to NOT want to follow this responsibility?

Whether they follow up on that or not is their own choice. However, they must accept that whatever choice they make will have consequences. And in reverse, the consequences are caused by their actions.


I like this analogy. Lets provide another one. After WWII there were a lot of Germans who tried to escape responsibility by denying that they knew anything. Even if this is true, especially if this is true, one needs to take responsibility for not knowing anything. If it isn't, well, then you're obviously lying to get away from the consequences. No rocket science here.

[jwai]

On a somewhat different note, does anyone else get the impression that without the exercise of human discretion, the SIBYL System is inherently rigged to eventually kill whoever gets identified as dangerous?

The society in PSYCHO-PASS is somewhat conditioned to treat the psychological rating as almost a matter of life and death, and if they get identified as having the wrong CC, they unsurprisingly flip out from the shock of realising what that means.

Attempts to flee or resist arrest are invariably treated as hostile, and quickly raise the CC rating high enough to seemingly justify lethal force, with very little way of actually getting the rating to go down quickly. There's no right to appeal once that happens when you're missing half your body.

It's also interesting that there's a contrast between Ginoza's almost slavish insistence on solely using a Dominator to determine guilt, and the Enforcers' comparatively old-school ways of doing detective work to identify the facts and circumstances. In the most recent episodes so far, you have to wonder whether it's the really the Enforcers running the entire investigation.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by jwai

On a somewhat different note, does anyone else get the impression that without the exercise of human discretion, the SIBYL System is inherently rigged to eventually kill whoever gets identified as dangerous?

What if I rephrased your question this way: "Does anyone get the impression that without human discretion, guns are inherently rigged to kill?"

My point is that the Sibyl System does what it is designed to do, and the fact that it is limited by human discretion (to pull the trigger or not) is perhaps part of its design. To quote Ginoza from Ep6:

There are a mountain of things that humans can do that animals cannot. One of them is safety control. No matter what it is, humans always place a safety device on it. Enforcers are also equipped with a safety device called Inspectors.

To extrapolate, I think it's not unreasonable to think that the inherent dangers of the Sibyl System had been considered, hence the need to have enforcers or inspectors decide whether or not to fire their Dominators. Unfortunately, as people become more reliant on technology, they develop the bad habit of pushing all decision-making to an algorithm. Hence the present-day problems in the Psycho-Pass universe.

Originally Posted by jwai

The society in PSYCHO-PASS is somewhat conditioned to treat the psychological rating as almost a matter of life and death, and if they get identified as having the wrong CC, they unsurprisingly flip out from the shock of realising what that means.

Attempts to flee or resist arrest are invariably treated as hostile, and quickly raise the CC rating high enough to seemingly justify lethal force, with very little way of actually getting the rating to go down quickly. There's no right to appeal once that happens when you're missing half your body.

So far, lethal force was authorised only in cases where enforcers and inspectors were in danger of being physically harmed. The option seems to be available only in a rare few extreme cases. One would think, for example, that the homicidal factory worker is a target for lethal elimination, but he only got stunned. So, I really don't see any alleged cases of CC ratings going accidentally high enough to trigger lethal retaliation.

But I would concede one point: The public might not know that they are not actually in that much danger of getting killed for having a high CC. The misperception of what public security forces do and are capable of doing probably breeds distrust, which may explain why so many people resist "arrest" more than they should.

Originally Posted by jwai

In the most recent episodes so far, you have to wonder whether it's the really the Enforcers running the entire investigation.

If you take Ginoza at his word, then I think it's fairly clear that inspectors are really no more than glorified safety devices. This may not be as unusual as you'd think. Present-day, real-life Japanese society operates very similarly, in that heads of departments are really no more than glorified rubber-stampers. Most of the grunt work is done by subordinates. Managers are there to take the credit — or to fall on their swords if things go badly wrong.

[Quadratic]

Originally Posted by jwai

On a somewhat different note, does anyone else get the impression that without the exercise of human discretion, the SIBYL System is inherently rigged to eventually kill whoever gets identified as dangerous?

The society in PSYCHO-PASS is somewhat conditioned to treat the psychological rating as almost a matter of life and death, and if they get identified as having the wrong CC, they unsurprisingly flip out from the shock of realising what that means.

Attempts to flee or resist arrest are invariably treated as hostile, and quickly raise the CC rating high enough to seemingly justify lethal force, with very little way of actually getting the rating to go down quickly. There's no right to appeal once that happens when you're missing half your body.

It's also interesting that there's a contrast between Ginoza's almost slavish insistence on solely using a Dominator to determine guilt, and the Enforcers' comparatively old-school ways of doing detective work to identify the facts and circumstances. In the most recent episodes so far, you have to wonder whether it's the really the Enforcers running the entire investigation.

A lot of people will agree with you, but in my opinion, I personally find a lot of these reasons unjustified.

The only people killed so far are those who attempted to kill anyway.
The rapist being flagged would have caused him to get treatment as the street robots advised, not killed, but he justified raping someone because he decided to think his CC would be high enough to consider him a latent criminal, especially since he was already considering 'sex with a real woman' (probably in a rape style situation, considering he was enjoying torturing her) anyway.
The situation Akane created with the rape victim caused more panic, the victim still got paralyzed (after she fixed the situation) and the victim got her treatment anyway.
In my opinion, for them to force treatment on to people who need serious help seems to be society justifying intervention. Do people who should be considered on suicidal watch stop being suicidal on their own? Do alcholics stop being alcholics on their own? etc
And, even if a few miraculously do, without ever reaching the stage of harming themselves or others, what percentage would that be? 1%, 2%, 0.005%?

As for Ginoza vs Enforcer's investigarion techniques, Ginoza's uses actual evidence, whereas the Enforcers are using circumstantial and speculative evidence. The fact that the intelligent (lethally dangerous) criminals hide their traces well is why they use Enforcers, who are essentially able to think 'if I'm going to commit a crime and get away with it, how would I?" which is speculation.
As it stands Sibyl's CC is treated as scientific, 'physical' evidence, like a footprint or DNA test, except its "measuring" your mentality.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by jwai

On a somewhat different note, does anyone else get the impression that without the exercise of human discretion, the SIBYL System is inherently rigged to eventually kill whoever gets identified as dangerous?

Inherently within the "technology"? No. However, I do think it is inherent within the "society that's built around the technology" (this is my definition of "system", to avoid misunderstandings like the one earlier in thread).

Murphy's Law tends to apply all the time in anthropological matters. I'm misanthropic that way.

[Ridwan]

I'll just repost here what I posted in the other thread, since this looks to be a better place for it :

Originally Posted by Ridwan

The crumble of this grotesquely arbitrary Sybil system will surely grant me a heft of Schadenfreude, and frankly I'm more interested in that then diving into the Sybil System itself.

[jwai]

Originally Posted by Quadratic

The situation Akane created with the rape victim caused more panic, the victim still got paralyzed (after she fixed the situation) and the victim got her treatment anyway.

The system did not seem to differentiate its response in regard that particular victim, who was freaked out not only from the trauma inflicted on her, but from having a gun pointed at her, and seeing what that weapon was capable of doing. Threatening to use that lighter was treated by the system as a hostile action, despite it being inspired more out of fear for one's life than actual malice. It was only because Akane intervened that we didn't see another fleshy explosion, given Kogami was quite prepared to pull the trigger otherwise.

As for Ginoza vs Enforcer's investigarion techniques, Ginoza's uses actual evidence, whereas the Enforcers are using circumstantial and speculative evidence.

So pointing a gun at someone and completely trusting whatever black-box calculations it makes are sound is actual evidence, especially when pointing a lethal weapon at someone is likely to get their nerves up anyway? Not an auditor, are you?

Unquestioning reliance on a system to make decisions for you on the assumption that it must be infallible is dangerous, given that an AI is generally only as good as the inputs, assumptions, processes and methodology built into it. I would be surprised if the series later does not later explore whether the SIBYL System is indeed as accurate as the majority of society makes it out to be.

If a police officer arrested you on the basis that his gun reckoned that you were guilty, I don't think it would be a far stretch to guess that you would be wanting some sort of judicial review into how exactly that decision was reached. Unfortunately, no such avenue for procedural fairness exists in the PP universe when snap judgments usually result in the death of the person concerned.

[Quadratic]

Originally Posted by jwai

The system did not seem to differentiate its response in regard that particular victim, who was freaked out not only from the trauma inflicted on her, but from having a gun pointed at her, and seeing what that weapon was capable of doing. Threatening to use that lighter was treated by the system as a hostile action, despite it being inspired more out of fear for one's life than actual malice. It was only because Akane intervened that we didn't see another fleshy explosion, given Kogami was quite prepared to pull the trigger otherwise.

Of course it doesn't differentiate. Blame the police placing priority over personal safety over the circumstances of the crime taking place.
It was Akane's first intervention that lead to the situation. If Masaoka had gotten his shot first, the whole ordeal would've ended 5 minutes earlier and the victim would have gotten her treatment anyway. Akane questioned the whole situation because of the whole 'what you learn in school doesn't apply in real life'/'theory vs practical' culture shock.
Admitedly the Dominator makes a gruesome mess, so it would be better for her to be knocked out immediately before she truly comprehends that she's covered in blood and guts.

Originally Posted by jwai

So pointing a gun at someone and completely trusting whatever black-box calculations it makes are sound is actual evidence, especially when pointing a lethal weapon at someone is likely to get their nerves up anyway? Not an auditor, are you?

Unquestioning reliance on a system to make decisions for you on the assumption that it must be infallible is dangerous, given that an AI is generally only as good as the inputs, assumptions, processes and methodology built into it. I would be surprised if the series later does not later explore whether the SIBYL System is indeed as accurate as the majority of society makes it out to be.

If a police officer arrested you on the basis that his gun reckoned that you were guilty, I don't think it would be a far stretch to guess that you would be wanting some sort of judicial review into how exactly that decision was reached. Unfortunately, no such avenue for procedural fairness exists in the PP universe when snap judgments usually result in the death of the person concerned.

If you're talking about the paralysis mode, that's up to the treatment centre to decide. They're not psychiatrists.
If you're talking about the lethal mode, the rapist's hostage situation justified it, the rape victim's pool of petrol justified it (regardless of how it got there), the robots justified it.
As it stands, the Dominator's first call were justified, the only real counterargument is Mido, because he was unarmed (pun unintended), but his house was rigged (pre-meditated), and he did kill three people so that really depends on you whether you consider it justified or not.

Considering they still rely on humans to make the final call, I believe it was their experience that lead them to believe the system is working, not believe for the sake of it, which is hinted with Ginoza.
It's speculation on my part, but I don't see it as society dumping a machine in just for the sake of it, it would have been tested to the point were it could be considered fairly reliable.
If the entire police work was done by autonomous robots, then you'd be justified in saying they're unquestioning the system.

Originally Posted by Ridwan

The crumble of this grotesquely arbitrary Sybil system will surely grant me a heft of Schadenfreude, and frankly I'm more interested in that then diving into the Sybil System itself.

I don't believe there is anything "arbitrary" with Sibyl at all. The fact it's implied they had some scientific basis (at least in their world) that the number crunching has been fairly correct makes it not surprising such a system was implemented.
I'm betting one internet cookie that they won't destroy Sibyl, and if there is a "good" scenario, then the most that would happen is a change in culture to rely more on themselves but it'll still be used.

Blindspots in the system doesn't justify removing the system completely, and society seems to have no qualms with fringe cases like the rapist.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Quadratic

It's speculation on my part, but I don't see it as society dumping a machine in just for the sake of it, it would have been tested to the point were it could be considered fairly reliable.
If the entire police work was done by autonomous robots, then you'd be justified in saying they're unquestioning the system.

At the earliest part of its history, maybe this is true. But you don't have to be an actual robot to act like one. The term "sheep" has been used before in the thread to describe the people's dynamics in societies. Overtime the people WILL stop questioning the technology because it works too well, too often. And they're justified in doing so.

[Edict]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf"

But, after being made aware of these traits, and being told that there are possible ways to curb, if not "fix", these biological tendencies for anti-social behaviour, an individual can perhaps be expected to take these corrective measures, or be deemed deviant.

That said though, there is the implication that prior to anyone being extraneously informed their actions remain largely unaccountable. Yet that type of supposition can very easily conflate important differences that do not strictly obviate the capacity for apprehension and by extension knowledgeable choice. It is a bit like saying, on average, the normal person tends to prefer ice cream over car tires for dessert, whereas the psychopath having a 'natural' predilection for both can equally entertain both 'choices'. However, if somehow choosing car tires further included wanton death of innocent persons is the process of choice still essentially one of inclination alone ?

in a roundabout way the point I'm getting at is that many (and even perhaps most) examples of criminal abnormality do not in apparent fact obviate the apprehension of the significance of choices. Whilst the same set of issues can certainly complicate how much the observer can speculate about the nature of choice (i.e. how much one is impelled rather than compelled), the concept of free will howsoever taken is not intrinsically compromised by these differences. I think even where the morass of these questions on human nature and morality arise a qualifiable distinction is largely retained between motivational differences and that of awareness of choices and their consequences.

although the actuality of choice within what is evidently a deterministic framework presents any number of vagaries that require careful conceptualisation, the differences typically exampled to question a presumed capacity for volition do not adequately distinguish between variations in choice motivation and that of a capacity for choice regulation. Whilst the former has to be entertained for any practical and indeed ethical evaluation of issues where these ideas are relevant it is the latter which is critical for the essential notion of deliberate choice. To tersely conclude this perspective, whilst blame is probably outside the immediate sphere of human knowledge for judging individuals, I wouldn't say the same entails a lack of self-will in either normal or abnormal individuals.

[Quadratic]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

At the earliest part of its history, maybe this is true. But you don't have to be an actual robot to act like one. The term "sheep" has been used before in the thread to describe the people's dynamics in societies. Overtime the people WILL stop questioning the technology because it works too well, too often. And they're justified in doing so.

I think the idea of things working 'too well' is really just another way of saying, we're too stupid to use (some) advanced tools and ideas...which hold some truth, even in real life .

Anyway, I can't disagree with what you've said, but having said that, at least in the police department (for now) Ginoza still humors himself in allowing Akane to learn the system the hard way and Kogami basically said to enforce him if she doesn't approve of his methods.

Considering 'fresh blood' is being injected to the police force (Akane), there's a sense of 'well, we haven't found a better way to solve this, you're free to try your own methods' (within reason, obviously). The question is whether such a tradition can hold against the test of time, which is usually answered with, logically no because 'I'm going to say I told you so when you reach the same conclusion'.