Machines and Non-Identity Problems

Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies 29 (2):12-25 (2019)
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Abstract

A number of thinkers have been wondering about the moral obligations humans have, or will have, to intelligent technologies. An underlying assumption is that “moral machines” are decades in the offing, and thus we have no pressing obligations now. But, in the context of technology, we are yet to consider that we might owe moral consideration to something that is not a member of the moral community but eventually will be as an outcome of human action. Do we have current actual obligations to technologies that do not currently exist? If there are obligations to currently non-existing technologies, we must confront what might be called the Non-Identical Machines Problem. Can we harm or benefit an entity by making it one way rather than another? This paper presents the problem and argues that it is more challenging than the standard Non-Identity Problem.

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Citations of this work

The Specter of Automation.Zachary Biondi - 2023 - Philosophia 51 (3):1093-1110.

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References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong.Wendell Wallach & Colin Allen - 2008 - New York, US: Oxford University Press.
Fellow Creatures. Our Obligations to the Other Animals.Christine M. Korsgaard - 2018 - Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 73 (1):165-168.

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