Patiency is not a virtue

The Design of Intelligent Systems and Systems of Ethics

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5771389
AutoresJoanna J Bryson (0000-0003-0021-0801, University of Bath, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen20
Número1
Páginas15-26
Fecha de publicación2018-02-16
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEthics and Information Technology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1388-1957 • E-ISSN: 1572-8439
EditorialSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s10676-018-9448-6
OpenAlexW2786522954
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas66
Referencias citadas67

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

Applied ethics · Moral agency · Normative ethics · Sociality · Virtue ethics · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment