Can Voting Bots be Ethical?
And a newcomer review of SteemVoter as a way to satisfy my personal apprehensions.
First some definitions for this discussion within Steemit :
- Voting Bot : Any automated process for voting without direct human interaction
- Voting Guild : Combining voting power either with or without human interaction
- Morals : Personal, internal guidelines of behavior you choose for yourself
- Ethics : Guidelines for interpersonal behavior and/or behavior of groups, chosen by the culture for the benefit of that culture.
If you have other definitions, please put them aside for now. Also note that Voting Guilds can use voting bots and therefore may or may not be Ethical depending on our belief about those bots. In the same way, while our morals may help to guide the aggregated Ethics of our society, it may still be true that a particular behavior can be moral but unethical, or immoral but ethical, to you. For instance, I believe that prison for nonviolent crime is immoral, but my society has determined that it is ethical - by the definitions above.
So to be ethical, a voting bot must accomplish what we as a group believe is the right use of casting a vote. After having read many posts on this subject, I condensed the ideas down to three general types of reasons for posting, and therefore three general goals of voting (since by voting we encourage the act), and posted them here, but they can be even further condensed to :
- To make a profit
- To benefit the reader
- To benefit the community
Briefly, with an agreement to expand upon request, I have to categorize the #1 as only probably moral, and only provisionally ethical. If you believe that making a profit as your only goal is proper behavior for you, then a bot is moral to you. Full Stop. Your life, your choice.
As a group I think we have to say that it is only ethical if there is a direct benefit to the group, and hopeful predictions that it might improve the STEEM economy are no more than that, predictions. If and when those predictions come true we can decide if that goal is ultimately ethical.
We must adapt #2 to be a reason for voting by changing the word “reader” to “author”. They might post it with the idealistic goal of helping those who read, but the same motive in a voter is to help those who write. Voting for noobies, voting for social issues, voting for friends, voting for encouragement or support. Since those who we might vote for with this motive are parts of the community, then it directly benefits the community and must be ethical. You have already decided that it is moral when you decided to vote.
Obviously #3 is automatically ethical by my definition.
Now the only question is, can an automatic vote fulfill those requirement?
I am here to say that the bot I am using can be made to accomplish that.
Some bots automatically upvote based only on numerical values, how many minutes, upvotes, trending tags, etc, does the post have. If you made the bot, or set up your own variables, we will assume that it fits your morals. But It has a fair chance of not being ethical. Those variables are unlikely to be able to predict the benefit to the community. I would be happy to be proven wrong on this - comment below.
However, the bot I use only checks two values, the name on the account and the time since posting. Certainly it can be made to violate any morals or ethics by choosing evil people and greedy voting times. But by that same property, it can be made to vote for people who educate and support the community, and voting can be timed to benefit the writer as much as the voter. This brings the human ability to predict the benefit to their own community, which is the best judgement of ethics we have. If the user has any desire to have an ethical bot, it will naturally do that.
The bot, which I mentioned in the subtitle, is SteemVoter. Please see the details here and be sure to note the planned revisions here.
The process was pretty simple for me, even being a noob, I got my “Posting key” from the “Permissions” tab in my wallet and put it in the "Add Account" form. That allows SteemVoter to vote as you. In return you allow them to vote one vote per day for their own benefit, to keep the bot running. Hopefully @steemvoter will correct me if I got something wrong.
Then I found several folks who I would want to vote for no matter what they posted. People who reflect the best ideals of Steemit, as far as I could tell. That’s what I would do if I were actually at the computer anyway. The bot then upvotes them when I am AFK or if I miss their post (BTW, be sure to pause it if you plan to manually vote for those same people. It uses up resources if you don’t). I usually keep it on all the time, then don’t vote for anything unless it’s past the automatic voting time. For instance, while I was writing and editing this, it voted for... checking... two votes, both of which I certainly would have made if I was reading.
So my final test, which I recommend any user to do, is to go back and read each post that your bot upvotes. If it is voting for posts which you would not have voted for, something needs to change. And here is where Steemvoter improves upon numerical value bots - there is little in the number of upvotes that can tell you if the content is what you would choose to represent your contribution to our society. But removing people who start behaving badly from your SteemVoter rules can absolutely do that.
Because SteemVoter (and other bots that have similar, non-numerical rulemaking provisions) can adapt to the moral and ethical concerns of the individual and the group, it fits the definition above and can be an ethical choice for encouraging and supporting our community while away from the keyboard.
I invite you to pursue my future history stories linked below.
To improve the community and the value of STEEM,
Post and vote for creative, original work that you like.
I would argue that voting for profit is NOT moral and may be provisionally ethical. The reasons that you gave for #2 are sufficient...it is ethical & moral, I would submit to attempt to help the individual, for whatever reason. To benefit the community would also prove beneficial. However, I would argue further, that these activities only could be deemed ethical or moral if performed by an individual on an individual basis. Voting by bot, regardless of goal and/or definition, is unethical and likely at least amoral if not immoral because it precludes the interaction intended by the poster, whether author, reader or any other designation.
Are you using my definition of "moral" meaning each individual's own choice of behavior? If so, then please do argue for your assertions, I am interested to hear your logic.
I'm using a more widely accepted definition of moral... societies, not individuals determine moral norms. You can'r redefine words to suit a particular point you wash to make. By that standard, I can define moral as "whatever I feel like doing at the time." Given that definition, I can say that it is moral for me to run over people with my car. My point, or logic, if you will, is this. For example, I can say that I hire a third person to send the hypothetical "Bob" a birthday card every year, therefore, I support Bob. In reality I do not actually support him, a third party, in the context of your article, a "bot" actually does it by proxy. You cannot have ethics or morality by proxy. It is something that must be done in person to fit a moral or ethical paradigm. A bot is not a person, so I question it's behavioral intent and whether or not it is capable of having one. Morality and ethics are governed by intent.
My definition fits both current and traditional dictionary definitions.
https://www.reference.com/world-view/difference-between-morality-ethics-e5a83d5135b93204
Of course your phrase, "moral norms" is a whole different thing.
So if you use a third party to send the card to Bob, it's not you. Does that include the US Post office who delivers your card? Does it include calling in your order to the flower shop who delivers flowers and cards in his town? Would it include emailing the flower shop? Would it include resending the same email next year?
We are going to run into the six deep reply problem pretty soon, so feel free to answer these questions in a new thread.
Also, if you would, explain how something that benefits the writer, the voter, and the community can be unethical.
The law of unintended consequences not withstanding, I'm not arguing about benefits, I'm saying that bots (non entities) cannot be moral or ethical. Also that support by proxy, rather than in person, isn't moral or ethical.
Well of course the bot is simply a tool, like a hammer or a car. If I use it ethically, it's use is ethical. I didn't say that a bot has personhood or agency to make up their own morals. That's just silly and not part of my argument at all. But like driving a car to help at the homeless shelter compared to driving a car to rob a bank, just because one use is unethical doesn't make other uses unethical.
You seem to have misunderstood the entire post. Perhaps I need to rewrite it.
I think perhaps it's me who misunderstands what bots are. I thought it is something that you would program to respond to whatever "Bob" might post, whether good or bad, as opposed to responding directly to each post in person, directly. A hammer, or a car is something used on individual occasions not something that acts independently. I guess I'm the one that misunderstood and I apologize.
Maybe we understand cars differently.
To me a car is something that keeps moving in one direction until I tell it go a different direction or to stop. The fact that I have to keep making adjustments to the direction and speed is simply a failure of the "auto"-mobile, not it's intrinsic property. A good car would stay in the middle of it's lane automatically unless I told it to change lanes (by adjusting the steering wheel), whereupon it would change lanes and stay in the middle of the new lane.
Properly set up, and mediated by constant corrections if it starts to drift, a bot keeps doing what I would be doing until I tell it to change directions or stop.
The only time the use of the car or the bot becomes unethical is if I stop guiding it, or guide it unethically.
I guess I'm kind of simple minded here. I understand a bot to be something you program to act on your behalf. For example, let's say I write a series of articles that you enjoy. You program your bot to give a vote of approval to my posts in your absence. Suddenly my posts become dark, let's say "kill all gay people" (I would of course never post something that repugnant, this is just an example). The bot would continue to affirm my posts. A car, or hammer, requires your manipulation every time you use it. Similarly, you used the example of the Post Office & a florist: if you buy a card for mom on Mother's Day, the post office will deliver it on your behalf, but you have to be involved on every Mother's Day. Same with the florist, with the exception that you can pay to have flowers delivered every holiday. Even so, you know that it's flowers that will be delivered, not porn or dead babies. With the bot, your involvement on a post by post basis is not required. There is an assumption that my posts will remain favorable (assumed intent) that does not exist with a car or hammer. If, as you say, you monitor the bot constantly it could fit the requirements of ethical/moral behavior. Like any other tool, it's only as good as the people who use it. Please let me know if I guessed right about what a bot is and how it functions. Either way, this has been an enlightening dialogue and I have enjoyed our discourse immensely. Thanks
If you read my original post, you will see why I don't agree with your assessment, because like getting out on the road and then just turning your steering wheel loose, using a bot unattended would be an unethical use.
"So my final test, which I recommend any user to do, is to go back and read each post that your bot upvotes. If it is voting for posts which you would not have voted for, something needs to change."
If your bot upvotes porn, then you take your vote back and change the rules of your bot.
Ok...you got me...you win the argument! I must have missed where you said read each post. Given that, I agree completely!
A good discussion to start and you have reasoned through many aspects of the situation.
Keep it up!
interesting ))