Understanding Artificial Agency
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4351981 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Leonard Dung (0000-0003-4154-5560, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 75 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 450-472 |
| Publication date | 2025-03-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/pq/pqae010 |
| OpenAlex | W4391592270 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 22 |
| References cited | 62 |
Which artificial intelligence (AI) systems are agents? To answer this question, I propose a multidimensional account of agency. According to this account, a system's agency profile is jointly determined by its level of goal-directedness and autonomy as well as is abilities for directly impacting the surrounding world, long-term planning and acting for reasons. Rooted in extant theories of agency, this account enables fine-grained, nuanced comparative characterizations of artificial agency. I show that this account has multiple important virtues and is more informative than alternatives. More speculatively, it may help to illuminate two important emerging questions in AI ethics: 1. Can agency contribute to the moral status of non-human beings, and how? 2. When and why might AI systems exhibit power-seeking behaviour and does this pose an existential risk to humanity
Agency (philosophy) · Epistemology · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science
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AI deception and moral standing
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Values in science and AI alignment research
The agency in language agents
Artificial thinking things
Artificial minds and AI duplication
AI in multilingual organizational communication
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A Criminology of Machines
Ethically charged decisions and the future of ‘AI Ethics’
The argument for near-term human disempowerment through AI
The Emergent Normativity of Carebots
AI as Agency without Intelligence
Home as mind
How to Count Animals, more or less
Fixing Language
Practical Ethics
Sensorimotor Life
Robot Rights
Real Patterns
Welcoming Robots into the Moral Circle
Mental State Attribution to Robots
Is it time for robot rights? Moral status in artificial entities
Why the Epistemic Objection Against Using Sentience as Criterion of Moral Status is Flawed
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Sentientism, Motivation, and Philosophical Vulcans
Affective Experience and Evidence for Animal Consciousness
How to ascribe beliefs to animals
Insightful artificial intelligence
Reinforcement learning and artificial agency
Intelligent Behaviour
Existential risk from AI and orthogonality
Profiles of animal consciousness
The argument for near-term human disempowerment through AI
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Agency
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Group Agency
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Agency, Intelligence and Reasons in Animals
Actions, Reasons, and Causes
Fellow Creatures
Materialism and the Moral Status of Animals
| Unique citing works | 22 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 22 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 22 |