Patiency is not a virtue: the design of intelligent systems and systems of ethics

Ethics and Information Technology 20 (1):15-26 (2018)
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Abstract

The question of whether AI systems such as robots can or should be afforded moral agency or patiency is not one amenable either to discovery or simple reasoning, because we as societies constantly reconstruct our artefacts, including our ethical systems. Consequently, the place of AI systems in society is a matter of normative, not descriptive ethics. Here I start from a functionalist assumption, that ethics is the set of behaviour that maintains a society. This assumption allows me to exploit the theoretical biology of sociality and autonomy to explain our moral intuitions. From this grounding I extend to consider possible ethics for maintaining either human- or of artefact-centred societies. I conclude that while constructing AI systems as either moral agents or patients is possible, neither is desirable. In particular, I argue that we are unlikely to construct a coherent ethics in which it it is ethical to afford AI moral subjectivity. We are therefore obliged not to build AI we are obliged to.

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Joanna Bryson
Hertie School

Citations of this work

Welcoming Robots into the Moral Circle: A Defence of Ethical Behaviourism.John Danaher - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (4):2023-2049.
In AI We Trust: Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, and Reliability.Mark Ryan - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (5):2749-2767.
The Philosophical Case for Robot Friendship.John Danaher - forthcoming - Journal of Posthuman Studies.
Is it time for robot rights? Moral status in artificial entities.Vincent C. Müller - 2021 - Ethics and Information Technology 23 (3):579–587.
The Prospects of Artificial Consciousness: Ethical Dimensions and Concerns.Elisabeth Hildt - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 14 (2):58-71.

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References found in this work

A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1969 - Harmondsworth,: Penguin Books. Edited by Ernest Campbell Mossner.
Grundlegung zur metaphysik der sitten.Immanuel Kant - 1785 - Gotha,: L. Klotz. Edited by Rudolf Otto.
Freedom evolves.Daniel Clement Dennett - 2003 - New York: Viking Press.

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