Ethics and Information Technology 14 (1):61-71 (2012)
Abstract |
Among ethicists and engineers within robotics there is an ongoing discussion as to whether ethical robots are possible or even desirable. We answer both of these questions in the positive, based on an extensive literature study of existing arguments. Our contribution consists in bringing together and reinterpreting pieces of information from a variety of sources. One of the conclusions drawn is that artifactual morality must come in degrees and depend on the level of agency, autonomy and intelligence of the machine. Moral concerns for agents such as intelligent search machines are relatively simple, while highly intelligent and autonomous artifacts with significant impact and complex modes of agency must be equipped with more advanced ethical capabilities. Systems like cognitive robots are being developed that are expected to become part of our everyday lives in future decades. Thus, it is necessary to ensure that their behaviour is adequate. In an analogy with artificial intelligence, which is the ability of a machine to perform activities that would require intelligence in humans, artificial morality is considered to be the ability of a machine to perform activities that would require morality in humans. The capacity for artificial (artifactual) morality, such as artifactual agency, artifactual responsibility, artificial intentions, artificial (synthetic) emotions, etc., come in varying degrees and depend on the type of agent. As an illustration, we address the assurance of safety in modern High Reliability Organizations through responsibility distribution. In the same way that the concept of agency is generalized in the case of artificial agents, the concept of moral agency, including responsibility, is generalized too. We propose to look at artificial moral agents as having functional responsibilities within a network of distributed responsibilities in a socio-technological system. This does not take away the responsibilities of the other stakeholders in the system, but facilitates an understanding and regulation of such networks. It should be pointed out that the process of development must assume an evolutionary form with a number of iterations because the emergent properties of artifacts must be tested in real world situations with agents of increasing intelligence and moral competence. We see this paper as a contribution to the macro-level Requirement Engineering through discussion and analysis of general requirements for design of ethical robots
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Keywords | Artificial morality Machine ethics Machine morality Roboethics Autonomous agents Artifactual responsibility Functional responsibility |
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ISBN(s) | |
DOI | 10.1007/s10676-011-9278-2 |
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References found in this work BETA
Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence.Andy Clark - 2003 - Oxford University Press.
On the Morality of Artificial Agents.Luciano Floridi & J. W. Sanders - 2004 - Minds and Machines 14 (3):349-379.
The Responsibility Gap: Ascribing Responsibility for the Actions of Learning Automata. [REVIEW]Andreas Matthias - 2004 - Ethics and Information Technology 6 (3):175-183.
Prolegomena to Any Future Artificial Moral Agent.Colin Allen & Gary Varner - 2000 - Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 12 (3):251--261.
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Citations of this work BETA
The Ethics of Algorithms: Mapping the Debate.Brent Mittelstadt, Patrick Allo, Mariarosaria Taddeo, Sandra Wachter & Luciano Floridi - 2016 - Big Data and Society 3 (2).
A Normative Approach to Artificial Moral Agency.Dorna Behdadi & Christian Munthe - 2020 - Minds and Machines 30 (2):195-218.
A Value-Sensitive Design Approach to Intelligent Agents.Steven Umbrello & Angelo Frank De Bellis - 2018 - In Roman Yampolskiy (ed.), Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security. New York, NY, USA: CRC Press. pp. 395-410.
Artificial Moral Agents Are Infeasible with Foreseeable Technologies.Patrick Chisan Hew - 2014 - Ethics and Information Technology 16 (3):197-206.
The Ethics of Information Warfare.Luciano Floridi & Mariarosaria Taddeo (eds.) - 2014 - Springer International Publishing.
View all 10 citations / Add more citations
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