Building on existing forms of critical, cultural, biopolitical, and sociopolitical posthumanism, in this text a new framework is developed for understanding and guiding the forces of technologization and posthumanization that are reshaping contemporary organizations. This ‘organizational posthumanism’ is an approach to analyzing, creating, and managing organizations that employs a post-dualistic and post-anthropocentric perspective and which recognizes that emerging technologies will increasingly transform the kinds of members, structures, systems, processes, physical and virtual spaces, and external ecosystems that are available for organizations (...) to utilize. It is argued that this posthumanizing technologization of organizations will especially be driven by developments in three areas: 1) technologies for human augmentation and enhancement, including many forms of neuroprosthetics and genetic engineering; 2) technologies for synthetic agency, including robotics, artificial intelligence, and artificial life; and 3) technologies for digital-physical ecosystems and networks that create the environments within which and infrastructure through which human and artificial agents will interact. -/- Drawing on a typology of contemporary posthumanism, organizational posthumanism is shown to be a hybrid form of posthumanism that combines both analytic, synthetic, theoretical, and practical elements. Like analytic forms of posthumanism, organizational posthumanism recognizes the extent to which posthumanization has already transformed businesses and other organizations; it thus occupies itself with understanding organizations as they exist today and developing strategies and best practices for responding to the forces of posthumanization. On the other hand, like synthetic forms of posthumanism, organizational posthumanism anticipates the fact that intensifying and accelerating processes of posthumanization will create future realities quite different from those seen today; it thus attempts to develop conceptual schemas to account for such potential developments, both as a means of expanding our theoretical knowledge of organizations and of enhancing the ability of contemporary organizational stakeholders to conduct strategic planning for a radically posthumanized long-term future. (shrink)

Robotic and artificially intelligent (AI) systems are becoming prevalent in our day-to-day lives. As human interaction is increasingly replaced by human–computer and human–robot interaction (HCI and HRI), we occasionally speak and act as though we are blaming or praising various technological devices. While such responses may arise naturally, they are still unusual. Indeed, for some authors, it is the programmers or users—and not the system itself—that we properly hold responsible in these cases. Furthermore, some argue that since directing blame or (...) praise at technology itself is unfitting, designing systems in ways that encourage such practices can only exacerbate the problem. On the other hand, there may be good moral reasons to continue engaging in our natural practices, even in cases involving AI systems or robots. In particular, daily interactions with technology may stand to impact the development of our moral practices in human-to-human interactions. In this paper, we put forward an empirically grounded argument in favor of some technologies being designed for social responsiveness. Although our usual practices will likely undergo adjustments in response to innovative technologies, some systems which we encounter can be designed to accommodate our natural moral responses. In short, fostering HCI and HRI that sustains and promotes our natural moral practices calls for a co-developmental process with some AI and robotic technologies. (shrink)

An important question one can ask of ethical theories is whether and how they aim to raise claims to universality. This refers to the subject area that they intend to describe or govern and also to the question whether they claim to be binding for all (moral) agents. This paper discusses the question of universality of Luciano Floridi’s information ethics (IE). This is done by introducing the theory and discussing its conceptual foundations and applications. The emphasis will be placed on (...) the ontological grounding of IE. IE’s claims to universality will be contrasted with those raised by discourse ethics. This comparison of two pertinent ethical theories allows for a critical discussion of areas where IE currently has room for elaboration and development. (shrink)

As artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous, it will be increasingly involved in novel, morally significant situations. Thus, understanding what it means for a machine to be morally responsible is important for machine ethics. Any method for ascribing moral responsibility to AI must be intelligible and intuitive to the humans who interact with it. We argue that the appropriate approach is to determine how AIs might fare on a standard account of human moral responsibility: a Strawsonian account. We make no claim that (...) our Strawsonian approach is either the only one worthy of consideration or the obviously correct approach, but we think it is preferable to trying to marry fundamentally different ideas of moral responsibility into a single cohesive account. Under a Strawsonian framework, people are morally responsible when they are appropriately subject to a particular set of attitudes—reactive attitudes—and determine under what conditions it might be appropriate to subject machines to this same set of attitudes. Although the Strawsonian account traditionally applies to individual humans, it is plausible that entities that are not individual humans but possess these attitudes are candidates for moral responsibility under a Strawsonian framework. We conclude that weak AI is never morally responsible, while a strong AI with the right emotional capacities may be morally responsible. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate which of the main conditions proposed in the moral responsibility literature are the ones that spell trouble for the idea that Artificial Intelligence Systems could ever be full-fledged responsible agents. After arguing that the standard construals of the control and epistemic conditions don’t impose any in-principle barrier to AISs being responsible agents, I identify the requirement that responsible agents must be aware of their own actions as the main locus of resistance to attribute that kind (...) of agency to AISs. This is because this type of awareness is thought to involve first-person or de se representations, which, in turn, are usually assumed to involve some form of consciousness. I clarify what this widespread assumption involves and conclude that the possibility of AISs’ moral responsibility hinges on what the correct theory of de se representations ultimately turns out to be. (shrink)

Recent advancements in AI have prompted a large number of AI ethics guidelines published by governments and nonprofits. While many of these papers propose concrete or seemingly applicable ideas, few philosophically sound proposals are made. In particular, we observe that the line of questioning has often not been examined critically and underlying conceptual problems not always dealt with at the root. In this paper, we investigate the nature of ethical AI systems and what their moral status might be by first (...) turning to the notions of moral agency and patience. We find that their explication would come at a too high cost which is why we, second, articulate a different approach that avoids vague and ambiguous concepts or the problem of other minds. Third, we explore the impact of our philosophical and conceptual analysis on the regulatory landscape, make this link explicit, and finally propose a set of promising policy steps. (shrink)

For an artificial agent to be morally praiseworthy, its rules for behaviour and the mechanisms for supplying those rules must not be supplied entirely by external humans. Such systems are a substantial departure from current technologies and theory, and are a low prospect. With foreseeable technologies, an artificial agent will carry zero responsibility for its behavior and humans will retain full responsibility.

The growing prominence of computers in contemporary life, often seemingly with minds of their own, invites rethinking the question of moral responsibility. If the moral responsibility for an act lies with the subject that carried it out, it follows that different concepts of the subject generate different views of moral responsibility. Some recent theorists have argued that actions are produced by composite, fluid subjects understood as extended agencies (cyborgs, actor networks). This view of the subject contrasts with methodological individualism: the (...) idea that actions are produced only by human individuals. This essay compares two views of responsibility: moral individualism (the ethical twin of methodological individualism), and joint responsibility (associated with extended agency theory). It develops a view of what joint responsibility might look like, and considers the advantages it might bring relative to moral individualism as well as the objections that are sure to be raised against it. (shrink)

The task of this essay is to respond to the question concerning robots and responsibility—to answer for the way that we understand, debate, and decide who or what is able to answer for decisions and actions undertaken by increasingly interactive, autonomous, and sociable mechanisms. The analysis proceeds through three steps or movements. It begins by critically examining the instrumental theory of technology, which determines the way one typically deals with and responds to the question of responsibility when it involves technology. (...) It then considers three instances where recent innovations in robotics challenge this standard operating procedure by opening gaps in the usual way of assigning responsibility. The innovations considered in this section include: autonomous technology, machine learning, and social robots. The essay concludes by evaluating the three different responses—instrumentalism 2.0, machine ethics, and hybrid responsibility—that have been made in face of these difficulties in an effort to map out the opportunities and challenges of and for responsible robotics. (shrink)

This paper discusses the problem of responsibility attribution raised by the use of artificial intelligence technologies. It is assumed that only humans can be responsible agents; yet this alone already raises many issues, which are discussed starting from two Aristotelian conditions for responsibility. Next to the well-known problem of many hands, the issue of “many things” is identified and the temporal dimension is emphasized when it comes to the control condition. Special attention is given to the epistemic condition, which draws (...) attention to the issues of transparency and explainability. In contrast to standard discussions, however, it is then argued that this knowledge problem regarding agents of responsibility is linked to the other side of the responsibility relation: the addressees or “patients” of responsibility, who may demand reasons for actions and decisions made by using AI. Inspired by a relational approach, responsibility as answerability thus offers an important additional, if not primary, justification for explainability based, not on agency, but on patiency. (shrink)

We argue that the notion of trust, as it figures in an ethical context, can be illuminated by examining research in artificial intelligence on multi-agent systems in which commitment and trust are modeled. We begin with an analysis of a philosophical model of trust based on Richard Holton’s interpretation of P. F. Strawson’s writings on freedom and resentment, and we show why this account of trust is difficult to extend to artificial agents (AAs) as well as to other non-human entities. (...) We then examine Margaret Urban Walker’s notions of “default trust” and “default, diffuse trust” to see how these concepts can inform our analysis of trust in the context of AAs. In the final section, we show how ethicists can improve their understanding of important features in the trust relationship by examining data resulting from a classic experiment involving AAs. (shrink)

It is an increasingly popular view among philosophers that moral responsibility can, in principle, be attributed to unconscious autonomous agents. This trend is already remarkable in itself, but it is even more interesting that most proponents of this view provide more or less the same argument to support their position. I argue that as it stands, the Extension Argument, as I call it, is not sufficient to establish the thesis that unconscious autonomous agents can be morally responsible. I attempt to (...) show that the Extension Argument should overcome especially strong ethical considerations; moreover, its epistemological grounds are not too solid, partly because the justifications of its premises are in conflict. (shrink)

This paper proposes a methodological redirection of the philosophical debate on artificial moral agency in view of increasingly pressing practical needs due to technological development. This “normative approach” suggests abandoning theoretical discussions about what conditions may hold for moral agency and to what extent these may be met by artificial entities such as AI systems and robots. Instead, the debate should focus on how and to what extent such entities should be included in human practices normally assuming moral agency and (...) responsibility of participants. The proposal is backed up by an analysis of the AMA debate, which is found to be overly caught in the opposition between so-called standard and functionalist conceptions of moral agency, conceptually confused and practically inert. Additionally, we outline some main themes of research in need of attention in light of the suggested normative approach to AMA. (shrink)

Philosophers of information, according to Luciano Floridi (The philosophy of information. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, p 32), study how information should be “adequately created, processed, managed, and used.” A small number of epistemologists have employed the concept of information as a cornerstone of their theoretical framework. How this concept can be used to make sense of seemingly intractable epistemological problems, however, has not been widely explored. This paper examines Fred Dretske’s information-based epistemology, in particular his response to radical epistemological (...) skepticism. We discuss the relationship between information, evidence and knowledge in relation to the problem of skepticism and the options available to an information-based epistemology for dealing with it. (shrink)

Creation of autonomously acting, learning artifacts has reached a point where humans cannot any more be justly held responsible for the actions of certain types of machines. Such machines learn during operation, thus continuously changing their original behaviour in uncontrollable (by the initial manufacturer) ways. They act without effective supervision and have an epistemic advantage over humans, in that their extended sensory apparatus, their superior processing speed and perfect memory render it impossible for humans to supervise the machine's decisions in (...) real-time. We survey the techniques of artificial intelligence engineering, showing that there has been a shift in the role of the programmer of such machines from a coder (who has complete control over the program in the machine) to a mere creator of software organisms which evolve and develop by themselves. We then discuss the problem of responsibility ascription to such machines, trying to avoid the metaphysical pitfalls of the mind-body problem. We propose five criteria for purely legal responsibility, which are in accordance both with the findings of contemporary analytic philosophy and with legal practise. We suggest that Stahl's (2006) concept of "quasi-responsibility" might also be a way to handle the responsibility gap. (shrink)