Ethical regulator theorem

The three requisites of ethics, integrity, and transparency are optional if a system only needs to be effective.

The effectiveness of a regulator, R, can be expressed as the function: EffectivenessR = PurposeR x TruthR x (VarietyR - EthicsR) x PredictabilityR x IntelligenceR x InfluenceR If two systems, A and B, are competing for control of a third system, C, and EffectivenessA "is greater than EffectivenessB, then A is more likely than B to win control of C".

The effectiveness function reflects how the variety of actions that are available to an ethical regulator is reduced by all actions that are considered unethical, which puts an ethical regulator at a disadvantage when competing against an unethical competitor.

The paradigm defines that a cybernetic regulator consists of a purpose, a model, a well-defined observer that only observes what the model requires as input parameters, some kind of decision-making intelligence, and a control channel that transmits selected actions or communications to the regulated system.

If the third model encodes what is illegal or socially unacceptable, then the concept of a third-order regulator has utility for making law-abiding robots and ethical AI.