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Human Goals Are Constitutive of Agency in Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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Abstract

The question whether AI systems have agency is gaining increasing importance in discussions of responsibility for AI behavior. This paper argues that an approach to artificial agency needs to be teleological, and consider the role of human goals in particular if it is to adequately address the issue of responsibility. I will defend the view that while AI systems can be viewed as autonomous in the sense of identifying or pursuing goals, they rely on human goals and other values incorporated into their design, and are, as such, dependent on human agents. As a consequence, AI systems cannot be held morally responsible, and responsibility attributions should take into account normative and social aspects involved in the design and deployment of the said AI. My argument falls in line with approaches critical of attributing moral agency to artificial agents, but draws from the philosophy of action, highlighting further philosophical underpinnings of current debates on artificial agency.

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Notes

  1. See Burr and Morley (2020) for a discussion of digital health technologies along the lines of the software mentioned.

  2. For sense (1), see Brooks (1991), for sense (2) Beer (1995); Nolfi and Floreano (2000).

  3. See Tan and Lim (2018) for a review of current advances in AI, including machine learning.

  4. This is a view held by Bryson and Kime (2011), in whose account the responsibility for AI systems should rest with the developer. While moral responsibility is not my main focus here, my view looks at human goals more broadly (including, for instance, the possibility of deliberation, or the involvement of institutions).

  5. Another example would be certain human actions as well, like skilled action (see Clark 2010). I will not discuss this here.

  6. For other debates on moral agency and artifacts more broadly, see Illies and Meijers (2009) and Peterson and Spahn (2011). For an expansion of Johnson’s (2006) critique, also see Johnson and Miller (2008).

  7. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for bringing this problem to my attention.

  8. This also helps set apart AI systems from other artifacts; see van de Poel (2020a: 399–400) for a comparison.

  9. See D’Oro and Sandis (2013) for a historical overview.

  10. Though I should note that they would not count as absolute presuppositions, which in Collingwood’s view do not have truth values. Rather, I take the falsity of these assumptions to lead to a worse account of AI behavior than approaches relying on different assumptions.

  11. See Cardoso et al. (2020) on autonomy and the Curiosity rover.

  12. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this point.

  13. Also see Elliott (2017) for a discussion of transparency about values in a general philosophy of science context.

  14. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for raising this point.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Daniel Kodaj, Gunnar Schumann, László Bernáth, and the anonymous referees for their feedback, which has helped improve this article. This paper has been presented at the seminar “New Work on the Metaphysics of Teleology”, held at Central European University.

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  1. Asian University for Women, 20 M.M. Ali Road, Chittagong, Bangladesh

    Elena Popa

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Popa, E. Human Goals Are Constitutive of Agency in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Philos. Technol. 34, 1731–1750 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-021-00483-2

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