Thank you for a well written article. I agree with you that there are a lot of concerns when it comes to machine learning and AI in general. However, I have to wonder if most of the fears and concerns regarding AI's and their capability (or lack there of) for compassion, as well as their ethical and moral programming, is all stemming from the fact that we do not have anything that can be truly be considered as Artificial Intelligence. All we have is a bunch of very clever algorithms performing their tasks blindly (only within the scope of their programming), not artificial intelligence.
We all love to use the term AI, but in most cases it is misleading to use that term to refer to a program or a set of algorithms governing a machine. At this point in history our version of "AI" is nothing but a collection of very clever programming with a lot of clever methods and routines. Contingencies and endless "if ... , then ... " conditions and loops make up the vast majority of what we consider an artificial mind.
However, the issue you bring up is legitimate and the concerns are real. In the very near future we will have true artificial intelligence. I think it is important to have these conversations now instead of waiting until the day of the dawn of true AI is upon us. If we don't find a way to teach artificial intelligence a way of understanding human emotion and morality our greatest fears make come to pass before we even realize it.
RE: Keeping systems accountable, machine ethics, value alignment or misalignment