AI and We in the Future in the Light of the Ouroboros Model: A Plea for Plurality

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to play an ever more important role in our lives and societies. Here, some boundary conditions and possibilities for shaping and using AI as well as advantageously embedding it in daily life are sketched. On the basis of a recently proposed cognitive architecture that claims to deliver a general layout for both natural intelligence and general AI, a coarse but broad perspective is developed and an emphasis is put on AI ethics. A number of findings, requirements, and recommendations are derived that can transparently be traced to the hypothesized structure and the procedural operation of efficient cognitive agents according to the Ouroboros Model. Including all of the available and possibly relevant information for any action and respecting a “negative imperative” are the most important resulting recommendations. Self-consistency, continual monitoring, equitable considerations, accountability, flexibility, and pragmatic adaptations are highlighted as foundations and, at the same time, mandatory consequences for timely answers to the most relevant questions concerning the embedding of AI in society and ethical rules for this.