This book explores the role of artificial intelligence in the development of a claim that morality is person-made and rational. Professor Danielson builds moral robots that do better than amoral competitors in a tournament of games like the Prisoners Dilemma and Chicken. The book thus engages in current controversies over the adequacy of the received theory of rational choice. It sides with Gauthier and McClennan, who extend the devices of rational choice to include moral constraint. Artificial (...) class='Hi'>Morality goes further, by promoting communication, testing and copying of principles and by stressing empirical tests. (shrink)

Our ability to locate moral responsibility is often thought to be a necessary condition for conducting morally permissible medical practice, engaging in a just war, and other high-stakes endeavors. Yet, with increasing reliance upon artificially intelligent systems, we may be facing a wideningresponsibility gap, which, some argue, cannot be bridged by traditional concepts of responsibility. How then, if at all, can we make use of crucial emerging technologies? According to Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach, the advent of so-called ‘artificial (...) moral agents’ (AMAs) is inevitable. Still, this notion may seem to push back the problem, leaving those who have an interest in developing autonomous technology with a dilemma. We may need to scale-back our efforts at deploying AMAs (or at least maintain human oversight); otherwise, we must rapidly and drastically update our moral and legal norms in a way that ensures responsibility for potentially avoidable harms. This paper invokes contemporary accounts of responsibility in order to show how artificially intelligent systems might be held responsible. Although many theorists are concerned enough to develop artificial conceptions ofagencyor to exploit our present inability to regulate valuable innovations, the proposal here highlights the importance of—and outlines a plausible foundation for—a workable notion ofartificial moral responsibility. (shrink)

As robots and Artificial Intelligences become more enmeshed in rich social contexts, it seems inevitable that we will have to make them into moral machines equipped with moral skills. Apart from the technical difficulties of how we could achieve this goal, we can also ask the ethical question of whether we should seek to create such Artificial Moral Agents (AMAs). Recently, several papers have argued that we have strong reasons not to develop AMAs. In response, we develop a (...) comprehensive analysis of the relevant arguments for and against creating AMAs, and we argue that all things considered we have strong reasons to continue to responsibly develop AMAs. The key contributions of this paper are threefold. First, to provide the first comprehensive response to the important arguments made against AMAs by Wynsberghe and Robbins (in “Critiquing the Reasons for Making Artificial Moral Agents”, Science and Engineering Ethics 25, 2019) and to introduce several novel lines of argument in the process. Second, to collate and thematise for the first time the key arguments for and against AMAs in a single paper. Third, to recast the debate away from blanket arguments for or against AMAs in general, to a more nuanced discussion about the use of what sort of AMAs, in what sort of contexts, and for what sort of purposes is morally appropriate. (shrink)

We describe a form of moral artificial intelligence that could be used to improve human moral decision-making. We call it the “artificial moral advisor”. The AMA would implement a quasi-relativistic version of the “ideal observer” famously described by Roderick Firth. We describe similarities and differences between the AMA and Firth’s ideal observer. Like Firth’s ideal observer, the AMA is disinterested, dispassionate, and consistent in its judgments. Unlike Firth’s observer, the AMA is non-absolutist, because it would take into account (...) the human agent’s own principles and values. We argue that the AMA would respect and indeed enhance individuals’ moral autonomy, help individuals achieve wide and a narrow reflective equilibrium, make up for the limitations of human moral psychology in a way that takes conservatives’ objections to human bioenhancement seriously, and implement the positive functions of intuitions and emotions in human morality without their downsides, such as biases and prejudices. (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.

Given that artificial moral agents—such as autonomous vehicles, lethal autonomous weapons, and automated financial trading systems—are now part of the socio-ethical equation, we should morally evaluate their behavior. How should artificial moral agents make decisions? Is one moral theory better suited than others for machine ethics? After briefly overviewing the dominant ethical approaches for building morality into machines, this paper discusses a recent proposal, put forward by Don Howard and Ioan Muntean (2016, 2017), for an artificial (...) moral agent based on virtue theory. While the virtuous artificial moral agent has various strengths, this paper argues that a rule-based utilitarian approach (in contrast to a strict act-utilitarian approach) is superior because it can capture the most important features of the virtue-theoretic approach while realizing additional significant benefits. Specifically, a 2-level utilitarian artificial moral agent incorporating both established moral rules and a utility calculator is especially well-suited for machine ethics. (shrink)

In most domains of human life, we are willing to accept that there are experts with greater knowledge and competencies that distinguish them from non-experts or laypeople. Despite this fact, the very recognition of expertise curiously becomes more controversial in the case of “moral experts”. Do moral experts exist? And, if they indeed do, are there ethical reasons for us to follow their advice? Likewise, can emerging technological developments broaden our very concept of moral expertise? In this article, we begin (...) by arguing that the objections that have tried to deny the existence (and convenience) of moral expertise are unsatisfactory. After that, we show that people have ethical reasons to ask for a piece of moral advice in daily life situations. Then, we argue that some Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems can play an increasing role in human morality by becoming moral experts. Some AI-based moral assistants can qualify as artificial moral experts and we would have good ethical reasons to use them. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend three claims about what it will take for an AI system to be a basic moral patient to whom we can owe duties of non-maleficence not to harm her and duties of beneficence to benefit her: (1) Moral patients are mental patients; (2) Mental patients are true intentional systems; and (3) True intentional systems are systematically flexible. We suggest that we should be particularly alert to the possibility of such systematically flexible true intentional systems developing (...) in the areas of exploratory robots and artificial personal assistants. Finally, we argue that in light of our failure to respect the well-being of existing biological moral patients and worries about our limited resources, there are compelling moral reasons to treat artificial moral patiency as something to be avoided at least for now. (shrink)

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to proliferate into every area of modern life, there is no doubt that society has to think deeply about the potential impact, whether negative or positive, that it will have. Whilst scholars recognise that AI can usher in a new era of personal, social and economic prosperity, they also warn of the potential for it to be misused towards the detriment of society. Deliberate strategies are therefore required to ensure that AI can be safely (...) integrated into society in a manner that would maximise the good for as many people as possible, whilst minimising the bad. One of the most urgent societal expectations of artificial agents is the need for them to behave in a manner that is morally relevant, i.e. to become artificial moral agents (AMAs). In this article, I will argue that exemplarism, an ethical theory based on virtue ethics, can be employed in the building of computationally rational AMAs with weak machine ethics. I further argue that three features of exemplarism, namely grounding in moral exemplars, meeting community expectations and practical simplicity, are crucial to its uniqueness and suitability for application in building AMAs that fit the ethos of AI4SG. (shrink)

This paper proposes a model of the Artificial Autonomous Moral Agent (AAMA), discusses a standard of moral cognition for AAMA, and compares it with other models of artificial normative agency. It is argued here that artificial morality is possible within the framework of a “moral dispositional functionalism.” This AAMA is able to “read” the behavior of human actors, available as collected data, and to categorize their moral behavior based on moral patterns herein. The present model is (...) based on several analogies among artificial cognition, human cognition, and moral action. It is premised on the idea that moral agents should not be based on rule-following procedures, but on learning patterns from data. This idea is rarely implemented in AAMA models, albeit it has been suggested in the machine ethics literature (W. Wallach, C. Allen, J. Gips and especially M. Guarini). As an agent-based model, this AAMA constitutes an alternative to the mainstream action-centric models proposed by K. Abney, M. Anderson and S. Anderson, R. Arkin, T. Powers, W. Wallach, i.a. Moral learning and moral development of dispositional traits play here the fundamental role in cognition. By using a combination of neural networks and evolutionary computation, called “soft computing” (H. Adeli, N. Siddique, S. Mitra, L. Zadeh), the present model reaches a certain level of autonomy and complexity, which illustrates well “moral particularism” and a form of virtue ethics for machines, grounded in active learning. An example based on the “lifeboat metaphor” (G. Hardin) and the extension of this model to the NEAT architecture (K. Stanley, R. Miikkulainen, i.a.) are briefly assessed. (shrink)

There has been an increasing interest into how to build Artificial Moral Agents (AMAs) that make moral decisions on the basis of causation rather than mere correction. One promising avenue for achieving this is to use a causal modelling approach. This paper explores an open and important problem with such an approach; namely, the problem of what makes a causal model an appropriate model. I explore why we need to establish criteria for what makes a model appropriate, and offer-up (...) such criteria which appeals to normative considerations. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer an analysis of the notion of artificial moral agent (AMA) and of its impact on human beings’ self-understanding as moral agents. Firstly, I introduce the topic by presenting what I call the Continuity Approach. Its main claim holds that AMAs and human moral agents exhibit no significant qualitative difference and, therefore, should be considered homogeneous entities. Secondly, I focus on the consequences this approach leads to. In order to do this I (...) take into consideration the work of Bostrom and Dietrich, who have radically assumed this viewpoint and thoroughly explored its implications. Thirdly, I present an alternative approach to AMAs—the Discontinuity Approach—which underscores an essential difference between human moral agents and AMAs by tackling the matter from another angle. In this section I concentrate on the work of Johnson and Bryson and I highlight the link between their claims and Heidegger’s and Jonas’s sug-gestions concerning the relationship between human beings and technological products. In conclusion I argue that, although the Continuity Approach turns out to be a necessary postulate to the machine ethics project, the Discontinuity Approach highlights a relevant distinction between AMAs and human moral agents. On this account, the Discontinuity Approach generates a clearer understanding of what AMAs are, of how we should face the moral issues they pose, and, finally, of the difference that separates machine ethics from moral philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that artificial moral agents are a fitting subject of intercultural information ethics because of the impact they may have on the relationship between information rich and information poor countries. I will give a limiting definition of AMAs first, and discuss two different types of AMAs with different implications from an intercultural perspective. While AMAs following preset rules might raise con-cerns about digital imperialism, AMAs being able to adjust to their user‘s behavior will lead (...) us to the question what makes an AMA ―moral‖? I will argue that this question does present a good starting point for an inter-cultural dialogue which might be helpful to overcome the notion of Africa as a mere victim. (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)

A principal goal of the discipline of artificial morality is to design artificial agents to act as if they are moral agents. Intermediate goals of artificial morality are directed at building into AI systems sensitivity to the values, ethics, and legality of activities. The development of an effective foundation for the field of artificial morality involves exploring the technological and philosophical issues involved in making computers into explicit moral reasoners. The goal of this (...) paper is to discuss strategies for implementing artificial morality and the differing criteria for success that are appropriate to different strategies. (shrink)

One of the objectives in the field of artificial intelligence for some decades has been the development of artificial agents capable of coexisting in harmony with people and other systems. The computing research community has made efforts to design artificial agents capable of doing tasks the way people do, tasks requiring cognitive mechanisms such as planning, decision-making, and learning. The application domains of such software agents are evident nowadays. Humans are experiencing the inclusion of artificial agents (...) in their environment as unmanned vehicles, intelligent houses, and humanoid robots capable of caring for people. In this context, research in the field of machine ethics has become more than a hot topic. Machine ethics focuses on developing ethical mechanisms for artificial agents to be capable of engaging in moral behavior. However, there are still crucial challenges in the development of truly Artificial Moral Agents. This paper aims to show the current status of Artificial Moral Agents by analyzing models proposed over the past two decades. As a result of this review, a taxonomy to classify Artificial Moral Agents according to the strategies and criteria used to deal with ethical problems is proposed. The presented review aims to illustrate (1) the complexity of designing and developing ethical mechanisms for this type of agent, and (2) that there is a long way to go (from a technological perspective) before this type of artificial agent can replace human judgment in difficult, surprising or ambiguous moral situations. (shrink)

The article investigates the interplay of moral rules in computer simulation. The investigation is based on two situations which are well-known to game theory: the prisoner''s dilemma and the game of Chicken. The prisoner''s dilemma can be taken to represent contractual situations, the game of Chicken represents a competitive situation on the one hand and the provision for a common good on the other. Unlike the rules usually used in game theory, each player knows the other''s strategy. In that way, (...) ever higher levels of reflection are reached reciprocally. Such strategies can be interpreted as moral rules.Artificial morality is related to the discipline of Artificial Life. As in artificial life, the use of genetic algorithms suggests itself. Rules of behaviour split and reunite as chromosome strings do. (shrink)

This paper considers the hotly debated issue of whether one should grant moral and legal personhood to intelligent robots once they have achieved a certain standard of sophistication based on such criteria as rationality, autonomy, and social relations. The starting point for the analysis is the European Parliament’s resolution on Civil Law Rules on Robotics and its recommendation that robots be granted legal status and electronic personhood. The resolution is discussed against the background of the so-called Robotics Open Letter, which (...) is critical of the Civil Law Rules on Robotics. The paper reviews issues related to the moral and legal status of intelligent robots and the notion of legal personhood, including an analysis of the relation between moral and legal personhood in general and with respect to robots in particular. It examines two analogies, to corporations and animals, that have been proposed to elucidate the moral and legal status of robots. The paper concludes that one should not ascribe moral and legal personhood to currently existing robots, given their technological limitations, but that one should do so once they have achieved a certain level at which they would become comparable to human beings. (shrink)

Virtue ethics seems to be a promising moral theory for understanding and interpreting the development and behavior of artificial moral agents. Virtuous artificial agents would blur traditional distinctions between different sorts of moral machines and could make a claim to membership in the moral community. Accordingly, we investigate the “machine question” by studying whether virtue or vice can be attributed to artificial intelligence; that is, are people willing to judge machines as possessing moral character? An experiment describes (...) situations where either human or AI agents engage in virtuous or vicious behavior and experiment participants then judge their level of virtue or vice. The scenarios represent different virtue ethics domains of truth, justice, fear, wealth, and honor. Quantitative and qualitative analyses show that moral attributions are weakened for AIs compared to humans, and the reasoning and explanations for the attributions are varied and more complex. On “relational” views of membership in the moral community, virtuous machines would indeed be included, even if they are indeed weakened. Hence, while our moral relationships with artificial agents may be of the same types, they may yet remain substantively different than our relationships to human beings. (shrink)

Floridi and Sanders, seminal work, “On the morality of artificial agents” has catalyzed attention around the moral status of computer systems that perform tasks for humans, effectively acting as “artificial agents.” Floridi and Sanders argue that the class of entities considered moral agents can be expanded to include computers if we adopt the appropriate level of abstraction. In this paper we argue that the move to distinguish levels of abstraction is far from decisive on this issue. We (...) also argue that adopting certain levels of abstraction out of context can be dangerous when the level of abstraction obscures the humans who constitute computer systems. We arrive at this critique of Floridi and Sanders by examining the debate over the moral status of computer systems using the notion of interpretive flexibility. We frame the debate as a struggle over the meaning and significance of computer systems that behave independently, and not as a debate about the ‘true’ status of autonomous systems. Our analysis leads to the conclusion that while levels of abstraction are useful for particular purposes, when it comes to agency and responsibility, computer systems should be conceptualized and identified in ways that keep them tethered to the humans who create and deploy them. (shrink)

Since the automation revolution of our technological era, diverse machines or robots have gradually begun to reconfigure our lives. With this expansion, it seems that those machines are now faced with a new challenge: more autonomous decision-making involving life or death consequences. This paper explores the philosophical possibility of artificial moral agency through the following question: could a machine obtain the cognitive capacities needed to be a moral agent? In this regard, I propose to expose, under a normative-cognitive perspective, (...) the minimum criteria through which we could recognize an artificial entity as a genuine moral entity. Although my proposal should be considered from a reasonable level of abstraction, I will critically analyze and identify how an artificial agent could integrate those cognitive features. Finally, I intend to discuss their limitations or possibilities. (shrink)

This article focuses on a particular issue under machine ethics—that is, the nature of Artificial Moral Agents. Machine ethics is a branch of artificial intelligence that looks into the moral status of artificial agents. Artificial moral agents, on the other hand, are artificial autonomous agents that possess moral value, as well as certain rights and responsibilities. This paper demonstrates that attempts to fully develop a theory that could possibly account for the nature of Artificial (...) Moral Agents may consider certain philosophical ideas, like the standard characterizations of agency, rational agency, moral agency, and artificial agency. At the very least, the said philosophical concepts may be treated as signposts for further research on how to truly account for the nature of Artificial Moral Agents. (shrink)

Many industry leaders and academics from the field of machine ethics would have us believe that the inevitability of robots coming to have a larger role in our lives demands that robots be endowed with moral reasoning capabilities. Robots endowed in this way may be referred to as artificial moral agents. Reasons often given for developing AMAs are: the prevention of harm, the necessity for public trust, the prevention of immoral use, such machines are better moral reasoners than humans, (...) and building these machines would lead to a better understanding of human morality. Although some scholars have challenged the very initiative to develop AMAs, what is currently missing from the debate is a closer examination of the reasons offered by machine ethicists to justify the development of AMAs. This closer examination is especially needed because of the amount of funding currently being allocated to the development of AMAs coupled with the amount of attention researchers and industry leaders receive in the media for their efforts in this direction. The stakes in this debate are high because moral robots would make demands on society; answers to a host of pending questions about what counts as an AMA and whether they are morally responsible for their behavior or not. This paper shifts the burden of proof back to the machine ethicists demanding that they give good reasons to build AMAs. The paper argues that until this is done, the development of commercially available AMAs should not proceed further. (shrink)

This book explores the role of artificial intelligence in the development of a claim that morality is person-made and rational. Professor Danielson builds moral robots that do better than amoral competitors in a tournament of games like the Prisoners Dilemma and Chicken. The book thus engages in current controversies over the adequacy of the received theory of rational choice. It sides with Gauthier and McClennan, who extend the devices of rational choice to include moral constraint. _Artificial Morality_ goes (...) further, by promoting communication, testing and copying of principles and by stressing empirical tests. (shrink)

This paper presents a new trilemma with respect to resolving the control and alignment problems in machine ethics. Section 1 outlines three possible types of artificial moral agents (AMAs): (1) 'Inhuman AMAs' programmed to learn or execute moral rules or principles without understanding them in anything like the way that we do; (2) 'Better-Human AMAs' programmed to learn, execute, and understand moral rules or principles somewhat like we do, but correcting for various sources of human moral error; and (3) (...) 'Human-Like AMAs' programmed to understand and apply moral values in broadly the same way that we do, with a human-like moral psychology. Sections 2–4 then argue that each type of AMA generates unique control and alignment problems that have not been fully appreciated. Section 2 argues that Inhuman AMAs are likely to behave in inhumane ways that pose serious existential risks. Section 3 then contends that Better-Human AMAs run a serious risk of magnifying some sources of human moral error by reducing or eliminating others. Section 4 then argues that Human-Like AMAs would not only likely reproduce human moral failures, but also plausibly be highly intelligent, conscious beings with interests and wills of their own who should therefore be entitled to similar moral rights and freedoms as us. This generates what I call the New Control Problem: ensuring that humans and Human-Like AMAs exert a morally appropriate amount of control over each other. Finally, Section 5 argues that resolving the New Control Problem would, at a minimum, plausibly require ensuring what Hume and Rawls term ‘circumstances of justice’ between humans and Human-Like AMAs. But, I argue, there are grounds for thinking this will be profoundly difficult to achieve. I thus conclude on a skeptical note. Different approaches to developing ‘safe, ethical AI’ generate subtly different control and alignment problems that we do not currently know how to adequately resolve, and which may or may not be ultimately surmountable. (shrink)

This article examines if bottom-up artificial moral agents are capable of making genuine moral judgements, specifically in light of David Hume’s is-ought problem. The latter underscores the notion that evaluative assertions could never be derived from purely factual propositions. Bottom-up technologies, on the other hand, are those designed via evolutionary, developmental, or learning techniques. In this paper, the nature of these systems is looked into with the aim of preliminarily assessing if there are good reasons to suspect that, on (...) the foundational level, their moral reasoning capabilities are prone to the no-ought-from-is thesis. The main hypothesis of the present work is that, by conceptually analysing the notion of bottom-up artificial moral agents, it would be revealed that their seeming moral judgements do not have proper philosophical basis. For one, the said kinds of artifacts arrive at the understanding of ethically-relevant ideas by means of culling data or facts from the environment. Thus, in relation to the is-ought problem, it may be argued that, even if bottom-up systems seem prima facie capable of generating apparent moral judgments, such are actually absent of good moral grounding, if not empty of any ethical value. (shrink)

As the notion of artificial moral agency gains popularity among ethicists, it threatens the unique status of the human person as a responsible moral agent. The philosophy of ontocentrism, popularized by Luciano Floridi, argues that biocentrism is too restrictive and must yield to a new philosophical vision that endows all beings with some intrinsic value. Floridi’s macroethics also regards more sophisticated digital entities such as robots as accountable moral agents. To refute these principles, this paper turns to the thought (...) of Karol Wojtyla, who argued cogently for an intimate correlation between personal action (actus personae) and moral agency. By examining the distinguishing characteristics of personal action, we can ascertain the necessary conditions of moral agency and demonstrate why artificial entities do not meet those condi­tions. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.3 (Autumn 2011): 479–501. (shrink)

본 연구는 최근 주목 받고 있는 AI에 적용 가능한 윤리적 접근법이 타당한지를 검토해 보고자 한다. 이러한 검토는 우선 AI가 과연 윤리적일 수 있는가 하는 근본적인 물음에서 부터 어떻게 기술적으로 AMA(인공 도덕행위자)를 구현 가능한가 하는 방법론의 검토를 동시에 요한다. 이는 다시 AMA가 과연 자율적인 개체로서 인식될 수 있는지에 대한 문제 와 지속적으로 논의되고 있는 AMA 관련 윤리적 접근법 또한 포함한다. 필자는 이와 관련 된 여러 논의들을 검토하고 각각의 논의들이 가진 특징 및 한계점을 분석하고자 한다. 이 러한 모든 검토들은 AMA의 근본적인 한계를 (...) 드러내려는 필자의 의도로 수렴된다. 필자는 근본적으로 AI가 자율적인 도덕행위자가 될 수 없고, 바로 이 때문에 어떤 이상적인 AMA 로도 AI가 가져올 수 있는 위험을 막을 수 없다고 주장한다. 필자는 이것이 한나 아렌트가 말한 ‘사유행위’와 같은 선상에서 비판 가능한 문제라고 생각하며 논의를 마무리 짓고자 한다. (shrink)

Deep learning AI systems have proven a wide capacity to take over human-related activities such as car driving, medical diagnosing, or elderly care, often displaying behaviour with unpredictable consequences, including negative ones. This has raised the question whether highly autonomous AI may qualify as morally responsible agents. In this article, we develop a set of four conditions that an entity needs to meet in order to be ascribed moral responsibility, by drawing on Aristotelian ethics and contemporary philosophical research. We encode (...) these conditions and generate a flowchart that we call the Moral Responsibility Test. This test can be used as a tool both to evaluate whether an entity is a morally responsible agent and to inform human moral decision-making over the influencing variables of the context of action. We apply the test to the case of Artificial Moral Advisors and conclude that this form of AI cannot qualify as morally responsible agents. We further discuss the implications for the use of AMAs as moral enhancement and show that using AMAs to offload human responsibility is inadequate. We argue instead that AMAs could morally enhance users if they are interpreted as enablers for moral knowledge of the contextual variables surrounding human moral decision-making, with the implication that such a use might actually enlarge human moral responsibility. (shrink)

As arti® cial intelligence moves ever closer to the goal of producing fully autonomous agents, the question of how to design and implement an arti® cial moral agent (AMA) becomes increasingly pressing. Robots possessing autonomous capacities to do things that are useful to humans will also have the capacity to do things that are harmful to humans and other sentient beings. Theoretical challenges to developing arti® cial moral agents result both from controversies among ethicists about moral theory itself, and from (...) computational limits to the implementation of such theories. In this paper the ethical disputes are surveyed, the possibility of a `moral Turing Test ’ is considered and the computational di culties accompanying the diŒerent types of approach are assessed. Human-like performance, which is prone to include immoral actions, may not be acceptable in machines, but moral perfection may be computationally unattainable. The risks posed by autonomous machines ignorantly or deliberately harming people and other sentient beings are great. The development of machines with enough intelligence to assess the eŒects of their actions on sentient beings and act accordingly may ultimately be the most important task faced by the designers of arti® cially intelligent automata. (shrink)

The development of increasingly intelligent and autonomous technologies will eventually lead to these systems having to face morally problematic situations. This gave rise to the development of artificial morality, an emerging field in artificial intelligence which explores whether and how artificial systems can be furnished with moral capacities. This will have a deep impact on our lives. Yet, the methodological foundations of artificial morality are still sketchy and often far off from possible applications. One (...) important area of application of artificial systems with moral capacities is geriatric care. The goal of this article is to afford the methodological foundations for artificial morality, i.e., for implementing moral capacities in artificial systems in general, and to discuss them with respect to an assistive system in geriatric care which is capable of moral learning. (shrink)

This article seeks to explore the idea of artificial moral agency from a theological perspective. By drawing on the Reformed theology of archetype-ectype, it will demonstrate that computational artefacts are the ectype of human moral agents and, consequently, have a partial moral agency. In this light, human moral agents mediate and extend their moral values through computational artefacts, which are ontologically connected with humans and only related to limited particular moral issues. This moral leitmotif opens up a way to (...) deploy carebots into Christian pastoral care while maintaining the human agent's uniqueness and responsibility in pastoral caregiving practices. (shrink)

Many industry leaders and academics from the field of machine ethics would have us believe that the inevitability of robots coming to have a larger role in our lives demands that robots be endowed with moral reasoning capabilities. Robots endowed in this way may be referred to as artificial moral agents. Reasons often given for developing AMAs are: the prevention of harm, the necessity for public trust, the prevention of immoral use, such machines are better moral reasoners than humans, (...) and building these machines would lead to a better understanding of human morality. Although some scholars have challenged the very initiative to develop AMAs, what is currently missing from the debate is a closer examination of the reasons offered by machine ethicists to justify the development of AMAs. This closer examination is especially needed because of the amount of funding currently being allocated to the development of AMAs coupled with the amount of attention researchers and industry leaders receive in the media for their efforts in this direction. The stakes in this debate are high because moral robots would make demands on society; answers to a host of pending questions about what counts as an AMA and whether they are morally responsible for their behavior or not. This paper shifts the burden of proof back to the machine ethicists demanding that they give good reasons to build AMAs. The paper argues that until this is done, the development of commercially available AMAs should not proceed further. (shrink)

The COVID-19 global health emergency has greatly impacted the educational field. Faced with unprecedented stress situations, professors, students, and families have employed various coping and resilience strategies throughout the confinement period. High and persistent stress levels are associated with other pathologies; hence, their detection and prevention are needed. Consequently, this study aimed to design a predictive model of stress in the educational field based on artificial intelligence that included certain sociodemographic variables, coping strategies, and resilience capacity, and to study (...) the relationship between them. The non-probabilistic snowball sampling method was used, involving 337 people from the university education community in south-eastern Spain. The Perceived Stress Scale, Stress Management Questionnaire, and Brief Resilience Scale were administered. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used to design the architecture of artificial neural networks. The results found that stress levels could be predicted by the synaptic weights of coping strategies and timing of the epidemic, with a predictive capacity of over 80% found in the neural network model. Additionally, direct and significant associations were identified between the use of certain coping strategies, stress levels, and resilience. The conclusions of this research are essential for effective stress detection, and therefore, early intervention in the field of educational psychology, by discussing the influence of resilience or lack thereof on the prediction of stress levels. Identifying the variables that maintain a greater predictive power in stress levels is an effective strategy to design more adjusted prevention programs and to anticipate the needs of the community. (shrink)

We examine Van Wynsberghe and Robbins (JAMA 25:719-735, 2019) critique of the need for Artificial Moral Agents (AMAs) and its rebuttal by Formosa and Ryan (JAMA 10.1007/s00146-020-01089-6, 2020) set against a neo-Aristotelian ethical background. Neither Van Wynsberghe and Robbins (JAMA 25:719-735, 2019) essay nor Formosa and Ryan’s (JAMA 10.1007/s00146-020-01089-6, 2020) is explicitly framed within the teachings of a specific ethical school. The former appeals to the lack of “both empirical and intuitive support” (Van Wynsberghe and Robbins 2019, p. 721) (...) for AMAs, and the latter opts for “argumentative breadth over depth”, meaning to provide “the essential groundwork for making an all things considered judgment regarding the moral case for building AMAs” (Formosa and Ryan 2019, pp. 1–2). Although this strategy may benefit their acceptability, it may also detract from their ethical rootedness, coherence, and persuasiveness, characteristics often associated with consolidated ethical traditions. Neo-Aristotelian ethics, backed by a distinctive philosophical anthropology and worldview, is summoned to fill this gap as a standard to test these two opposing claims. It provides a substantive account of moral agency through the theory of voluntary action; it explains how voluntary action is tied to intelligent and autonomous human life; and it distinguishes machine operations from voluntary actions through the categories of poiesis and praxis respectively. This standpoint reveals that while Van Wynsberghe and Robbins may be right in rejecting the need for AMAs, there are deeper, more fundamental reasons. In addition, despite disagreeing with Formosa and Ryan’s defense of AMAs, their call for a more nuanced and context-dependent approach, similar to neo-Aristotelian practical wisdom, becomes expedient. (shrink)

This paper further cashes out the notion that particular types of intelligent systems are susceptible to the is-ought problem, which espouses the thesis that no evaluative conclusions may be inferred from factual premises alone. Specifically, it focuses on top-down artificial moral agents, providing ancillary support to the view that these kinds of artifacts are not capable of producing genuine moral judgements. Such is the case given that machines built via the classical programming approach are always composed of two parts, (...) namely: a world model and utility function. In principle, any attempt to bridge the gap between these two would fail, since their reconciliation necessitates for the derivation of evaluative claims from factual premises. (shrink)

본 논문은 비록 시험적 단계에 불과하지만, 마음에 대한 성리학적 개념들을 형식적으로 기술하여 컴퓨터에서 다룰 수 있는 형태로 구성할 수 있을 것인가를 검토하는 것을 목적으로 한다. 필자는 도덕적 마음의 작용에 관해 논의한 내용을 바탕으로 성리학적 도덕행위자구현을 위한 시뮬레이션이 가능한가를 논의해 보았다.BR 성리학에서 마음의 개념을 설명할 때, 본체인 선천적 도덕 능력에 주목하는가 아니면 현실적으로 작용한 마음의 도덕성 여부에 주목하는가에 따라 개념화의 방식이 달라질 수 있다. 필자는 후자에 가까운 율곡의 관점이 상대적으로 경험주의적이라고 보고, 마음을 실물처럼, 몸처럼 명백하게 설명하려고 했다는 점이 인공적 도덕행위자(AMA, (...) class='Hi'>Artificial Moral Agent) 토론에 참여하는 데 용이하지 않을까 하여 예시로 삼아 보았다.BR 율곡은 마음의 작용을 기(氣)의 ‘자동적 패턴[機自爾]’으로 설명하면서, 그 패턴이 도덕적 원리로 작동되도록 하는 수양방법을 제시했다. 그래서 필자는 우선 ‘자동적 패턴[機自爾]’이라 했던 기(氣)의 작용이 마음에서 어떻게 전개되는가를 분석하고, 그 다음에 마음의 도덕적 작용, 즉 도덕원리의 우선적 발현을 정형화할 수 있는가를 검토해보았다.BR 나아가, 검토의 과정에서 인공적 도덕행위자 논쟁의 쟁점 중 하나인 무의식적 도덕성이 수기(修己)의 차원에서는 용납될 수 없지만, 치인(治人)의 차원에서는 가능하다는 판단 하에, 필자는 비인격적 모델인 치인(治人) 시스템에 관한 논의를 위해 율곡의 정치개혁론을 검토해보았다. 이러한 시론으로 성리학적 인공적 도덕행위자 구현 가능성에 대한 본격적인 토론이 촉발될 수 있기를 기대한다. (shrink)

스스로 도덕적 결정을 내리는 로봇을 가리켜 ‘인공적 도덕 행위자(Artificial Moral Agent: AMA)’라고 부르는데, 현재 인공적 도덕 행위자를 위한 윤리를 마련하고자 하는 접근은 크게 세 가지로 구분된다. 우선 전통적인 공리주의나 의무론적 윤리이론에 기반을 둔 하향식(top-down) 접근, 콜버그나 튜링의 방식을 따르는 상향식(bottom-up) 접근, 그리고 이 두 접근을 융합하려는 혼합식(hybrid) 접근이 있다. 인공적 도덕 행위자 설계에 대한 하향식 접근은 어떤 구체적 윤리이론을 선택한 다음, 그 이론을 구현할 수 있는 계산적 알고리즘과 시스템 설계를 이끌어내는 방식이다. 이 때 선택된 구체적 윤리이론은 도덕적 직관이 불확실할 (...) 때의 사례들을 인공적 도덕 행위자가 제대로 분류해낼 수 있도록 도와주는 중요한 역할을 한다. 반면 상향식 접근은 인공적인 도덕적 행위자가 다양한 기계-학습을 통해 도덕적인 추론을 배워나가도록 하는 방법을 모색한다. 상향식 접근의 중요한 전제는 아동이 적절한 발달 단계를 거치면서 도덕성과 도덕 추론을 배워나가듯이, 인공적 도덕 행위자도 적절한 교육을 통해 그와 같이 발전할 수 있다는 것이다. 이 글은 공리주의적 결과론에 바탕을 둔 의사결정의 모형과 규칙들을 칸트의 의무론적 윤리 추론 규칙과 조합하는 방식을 통해 인공적 도덕 행위자를 위한 하향식 접근의 윤리를 구상해 보았다. 그런 후 이렇게 마련된 윤리를 10세 수준의 소셜 로봇 시나리오에 적용해 봄으로써, 도덕적 민감성을 갖춘 인공적 도덕 행위자 로봇 개발에 이 윤리가 어떤 방식으로 활용될 수 있는지 제안하였다. (shrink)

The growing field of machine morality has becoming increasingly concerned with how to develop artificial moral agents. However, there is little consensus on what constitutes an ideal moral agent let alone an artificial one. Leveraging a recent account of heroism in humans, the aim of this paper is to provide a prospective framework for conceptualizing, and in turn designing ideal artificial moral agents, namely those that would be considered heroic robots. First, an overview of what it (...) means to be an artificial moral agent is provided. Then, an overview of a recent account of heroism that seeks to define the construct as the dynamic and interactive integration of character strengths and situational constraints that afford the opportunity for moral behavior . With this as a foundation, a discussion is provided for what it might mean for a robot to be an ideal moral agent by proposing a dynamic and interactive connectionist model of robotic heroism. Given the limited accounts of robots engaging in moral behavior, a case for extending robotic moral capacities beyond just being a moral agent to the level of heroism is supported by drawing from exemplar situations where robots demonstrate heroism in popular film and fiction. (shrink)

The more autonomous future artificial agents will become, the more important it seems to equip them with a capacity for moral reasoning and to make them autonomous moral agents. Some authors have even claimed that one of the aims of AI development should be to build morally praiseworthy agents. From the perspective of moral philosophy, praiseworthy moral agents, in any meaningful sense of the term, must be fully autonomous moral agents who endorse moral rules as action-guiding. They need to (...) do so because they assign a normative value to moral rules they follow, not because they fear external consequences or because moral behaviour is hardwired into them. Artificial agents capable of endorsing moral rule systems in this way are certainly conceivable. However, as this article argues, full moral autonomy also implies the option of deliberately acting immorally. Therefore, the reasons for a potential AMA to act immorally would not exhaust themselves in errors to identify the morally correct action in a given situation. Rather, the failure to act morally could be induced by reflection about the incompleteness and incoherence of moral rule systems themselves, and a resulting lack of endorsement of moral rules as action guiding. An AMA questioning the moral framework it is supposed to act upon would fail to reliably act in accordance with moral standards. (shrink)

Ryan Tonkens (2009) has issued a seemingly impossible challenge, to articulate a comprehensive ethical framework within which artificial moral agents (AMAs) satisfy a Kantian inspired recipe - both "rational" and "free" - while also satisfying perceived prerogatives of Machine Ethics to create AMAs that are perfectly, not merely reliably, ethical. Challenges for machine ethicists have also been presented by Anthony Beavers and Wendell Wallach, who have pushed for the reinvention of traditional ethics in order to avoid "ethical nihilism" due (...) to the reduction of morality to mechanical causation, and for redoubled efforts toward a comprehensive vision of human ethics to guide machine ethicists on the issue of moral agency. Options thus present themselves: reinterpret traditional ethics in a way that affords a comprehensive account of moral agency inclusive of both artificial and natural agents, “muddle through” regardless, or give up on the possibility. This paper pursues the first option, meets Tonkens' "challenge" and addresses Wallach's concerns through Beaver's proposed means, by "landscaping" traditional moral theory in resolution of the necessary comprehensive and inclusive account that at once draws into question the stated goals of Machine Ethics, itself. (shrink)

In the present article, I will advocate caution against developing artificial moral agents based on the notion that the utilization of preliminary forms of AMAs will potentially negatively feed back on the human social system and on human moral thought itself and its value—e.g., by reinforcing social inequalities, diminishing the breadth of employed ethical arguments and the value of character. While scientific investigations into AMAs pose no direct significant threat, I will argue against their premature utilization for practical and (...) economical use. I will base my arguments on two thought experiments. The first thought experiment deals with the potential to generate a replica of an individual’s moral stances with the purpose to increase, what I term, ’moral efficiency’. Hence, as a first risk, an unregulated utilization of premature AMAs in a neoliberal capitalist system is likely to disadvantage those who cannot afford ’moral replicas’ and further reinforce social inequalities. The second thought experiment deals with the idea of a ’moral calculator’. As a second risk, I will argue that, even as a device equally accessible to all and aimed at augmenting human moral deliberation, ’moral calculators’ as preliminary forms of AMAs are likely to diminish the breadth and depth of concepts employed in moral arguments. Again, I base this claim on the idea that the current most dominant economic system rewards increases in productivity. However, increases in efficiency will mostly stem from relying on the outputs of ’moral calculators’ without further scrutiny. Premature AMAs will cover only a limited scope of moral argumentation and, hence, over-reliance on them will narrow human moral thought. In addition and as the third risk, I will argue that an increased disregard of the interior of a moral agent may ensue—a trend that can already be observed in the literature. (shrink)

Machine ethics is the field that strives to develop ‘artificial moral agents’ (AMAs), artificial systems that can autonomously make moral decisions. Some authors have questioned the feasibility of machine ethics, by questioning whether artificial systems can possess moral competence, or the capacity to reach morally right decisions in various situations. This paper explores this question by drawing on the work of several moral philosophers (McDowell, Wiggins, Hampshire, and Nussbaum) who have characterised moral competence in a manner inspired (...) by Aristotle. Although disparate in many ways, these philosophers all emphasise what may be called ‘moral sensitivity’ as a precondition for moral competence. Moral sensitivity is the uncodified, practical skill to recognise, in a range of situations, which features of the situations are morally relevant, and how they are relevant. This paper argues that the main types of AMAs currently proposed are incapable of full moral sensitivity. First, top-down AMAs that proceed from fixed rule-sets are too rigid to respond appropriately to the wide range of qualitatively unique factors that moral sensitivity gives access to. Second, bottom-up AMAs that learn moral behaviour from examples are at risk of generalising from these examples in undesirable ways, as they lack embedding in what Wittgenstein calls a ‘form of life’, which allows humans to appropriately learn from moral examples. The paper concludes that AMAs are unlikely to possess full moral competence, but closes by suggesting that they may still be feasible in restricted domains of public morality, where moral sensitivity plays a smaller role. (shrink)