76 found
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  1. Welcoming Robots into the Moral Circle: A Defence of Ethical Behaviourism.John Danaher - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (4):2023-2049.
    Can robots have significant moral status? This is an emerging topic of debate among roboticists and ethicists. This paper makes three contributions to this debate. First, it presents a theory – ‘ethical behaviourism’ – which holds that robots can have significant moral status if they are roughly performatively equivalent to other entities that have significant moral status. This theory is then defended from seven objections. Second, taking this theoretical position onboard, it is argued that the performative threshold that robots need (...)
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  2. Automation and Utopia: Human Flourishing in an Age Without Work.John Danaher - 2019 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    Human obsolescence is imminent. We are living through an era in which our activity is becoming less and less relevant to our well-being and to the fate of our planet. This trend toward increased obsolescence is likely to continue in the future, and we must do our best to prepare ourselves and our societies for this reality. Far from being a cause for despair, this is in fact an opportunity for optimism. Harnessed in the right way, the technology that hastens (...)
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  3. Robots, Law and the Retribution Gap.John Danaher - 2016 - Ethics and Information Technology 18 (4):299–309.
    We are living through an era of increased robotisation. Some authors have already begun to explore the impact of this robotisation on legal rules and practice. In doing so, many highlight potential liability gaps that might arise through robot misbehaviour. Although these gaps are interesting and socially significant, they do not exhaust the possible gaps that might be created by increased robotisation. In this article, I make the case for one of those alternative gaps: the retribution gap. This gap arises (...)
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  4. The Threat of Algocracy: Reality, Resistance and Accommodation.John Danaher - 2016 - Philosophy and Technology 29 (3):245-268.
    One of the most noticeable trends in recent years has been the increasing reliance of public decision-making processes on algorithms, i.e. computer-programmed step-by-step instructions for taking a given set of inputs and producing an output. The question raised by this article is whether the rise of such algorithmic governance creates problems for the moral or political legitimacy of our public decision-making processes. Ignoring common concerns with data protection and privacy, it is argued that algorithmic governance does pose a significant threat (...)
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  5. The rise of the robots and the crisis of moral patiency.John Danaher - 2019 - AI and Society 34 (1):129-136.
    This paper adds another argument to the rising tide of panic about robots and AI. The argument is intended to have broad civilization-level significance, but to involve less fanciful speculation about the likely future intelligence of machines than is common among many AI-doomsayers. The argument claims that the rise of the robots will create a crisis of moral patiency. That is to say, it will reduce the ability and willingness of humans to act in the world as responsible moral agents, (...)
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  6. Will Life Be Worth Living in a World Without Work? Technological Unemployment and the Meaning of Life.John Danaher - 2017 - Science and Engineering Ethics 23 (1):41-64.
    Suppose we are about to enter an era of increasing technological unemployment. What implications does this have for society? Two distinct ethical/social issues would seem to arise. The first is one of distributive justice: how will the efficiency gains from automated labour be distributed through society? The second is one of personal fulfillment and meaning: if people no longer have to work, what will they do with their lives? In this article, I set aside the first issue and focus on (...)
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  7. Robot Betrayal: a guide to the ethics of robotic deception.John Danaher - 2020 - Ethics and Information Technology 22 (2):117-128.
    If a robot sends a deceptive signal to a human user, is this always and everywhere an unethical act, or might it sometimes be ethically desirable? Building upon previous work in robot ethics, this article tries to clarify and refine our understanding of the ethics of robotic deception. It does so by making three arguments. First, it argues that we need to distinguish between three main forms of robotic deception (external state deception; superficial state deception; and hidden state deception) in (...)
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  8. Toward an Ethics of AI Assistants: an Initial Framework.John Danaher - 2018 - Philosophy and Technology 31 (4):629-653.
    Personal AI assistants are now nearly ubiquitous. Every leading smartphone operating system comes with a personal AI assistant that promises to help you with basic cognitive tasks: searching, planning, messaging, scheduling and so on. Usage of such devices is effectively a form of algorithmic outsourcing: getting a smart algorithm to do something on your behalf. Many have expressed concerns about this algorithmic outsourcing. They claim that it is dehumanising, leads to cognitive degeneration, and robs us of our freedom and autonomy. (...)
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  9. Tragic Choices and the Virtue of Techno-Responsibility Gaps.John Danaher - 2022 - Philosophy and Technology 35 (2):1-26.
    There is a concern that the widespread deployment of autonomous machines will open up a number of ‘responsibility gaps’ throughout society. Various articulations of such techno-responsibility gaps have been proposed over the years, along with several potential solutions. Most of these solutions focus on ‘plugging’ or ‘dissolving’ the gaps. This paper offers an alternative perspective. It argues that techno-responsibility gaps are, sometimes, to be welcomed and that one of the advantages of autonomous machines is that they enable us to embrace (...)
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  10. The Philosophical Case for Robot Friendship.John Danaher - forthcoming - Journal of Posthuman Studies.
    Friendship is an important part of the good life. While many roboticists are eager to create friend-like robots, many philosophers and ethicists are concerned. They argue that robots cannot really be our friends. Robots can only fake the emotional and behavioural cues we associate with friendship. Consequently, we should resist the drive to create robot friends. In this article, I argue that the philosophical critics are wrong. Using the classic virtue-ideal of friendship, I argue that robots can plausibly be considered (...)
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  11. Robotic Rape and Robotic Child Sexual Abuse: Should They be Criminalised?John Danaher - 2017 - Criminal Law and Philosophy 11 (1):71-95.
    Soon there will be sex robots. The creation of such devices raises a host of social, legal and ethical questions. In this article, I focus in on one of them. What if these sex robots are deliberately designed and used to replicate acts of rape and child sexual abuse? Should the creation and use of such robots be criminalised, even if no person is harmed by the acts performed? I offer an argument for thinking that they should be. The argument (...)
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  12. Mechanisms of Techno-Moral Change: A Taxonomy and Overview.John Danaher & Henrik Skaug Sætra - 2023 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 26 (5):763-784.
    The idea that technologies can change moral beliefs and practices is an old one. But how, exactly, does this happen? This paper builds on an emerging field of inquiry by developing a synoptic taxonomy of the mechanisms of techno-moral change. It argues that technology affects moral beliefs and practices in three main domains: decisional (how we make morally loaded decisions), relational (how we relate to others) and perceptual (how we perceive situations). It argues that across these three domains there are (...)
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  13. The Quantified Relationship.John Danaher, Sven Nyholm & Brian D. Earp - 2018 - American Journal of Bioethics 18 (2):3-19.
    The growth of self-tracking and personal surveillance has given rise to the Quantified Self movement. Members of this movement seek to enhance their personal well-being, productivity, and self-actualization through the tracking and gamification of personal data. The technologies that make this possible can also track and gamify aspects of our interpersonal, romantic relationships. Several authors have begun to challenge the ethical and normative implications of this development. In this article, we build upon this work to provide a detailed ethical analysis (...)
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  14. The Symbolic-Consequences Argument in the Sex Robot Debate.John Danaher - 2017 - In John Danaher & Neil McArthur (eds.), Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications. MIT Press.
    This chapter examines a common objection to sex robots: the symbolic-consequences argument. According to this argument sex robots are problematic because they symbolise something disturbing about our attitude to sex-related norms such as consent and the status of our sex partners, and because of the potential consequences of this symbolism. After formalising this objection and considering several real-world uses of it, the chapter subjects it to critical scrutiny. It argues that while there are grounds for thinking that sex robots could (...)
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  15. Automation, Work and the Achievement Gap.John Danaher & Sven Nyholm - 2021 - AI and Ethics 1 (3):227–237.
    Rapid advances in AI-based automation have led to a number of existential and economic concerns. In particular, as automating technologies develop enhanced competency they seem to threaten the values associated with meaningful work. In this article, we focus on one such value: the value of achievement. We argue that achievement is a key part of what makes work meaningful and that advances in AI and automation give rise to a number achievement gaps in the workplace. This could limit people’s ability (...)
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  16. The Ethics of Virtual Sexual Assault.John Danaher - 2023 - In Carissa Véliz (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics. Oxford University Press.
    This chapter addresses the growing problem of unwanted sexual interactions in virtual environments. It reviews the available evidence regarding the prevalence and severity of this problem. It then argues that due to the potential harms of such interactions, as well as their nonconsensual nature, there is a good prima facie argument for viewing them as serious moral wrongs. Does this prima facie argument hold up to scrutiny? After considering three major objections – the ‘it’s not real’ objection; the ‘it’s just (...)
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  17. In Defence of the Hivemind Society.John Danaher & Steve Petersen - 2020 - Neuroethics 14 (2):253-267.
    The idea that humans should abandon their individuality and use technology to bind themselves together into hivemind societies seems both farfetched and frightening – something that is redolent of the worst dystopias from science fiction. In this article, we argue that these common reactions to the ideal of a hivemind society are mistaken. The idea that humans could form hiveminds is sufficiently plausible for its axiological consequences to be taken seriously. Furthermore, far from being a dystopian nightmare, the hivemind society (...)
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  18. A Defence of Sexual Inclusion.John Danaher - 2020 - Social Theory and Practice 46 (3):467-496.
    This article argues that access to meaningful sexual experience should be included within the set of the goods that are subject to principles of distributive justice. It argues that some people are currently unjustly excluded from meaningful sexual experience and it is not implausible to suggest that they might thereby have certain claim rights to sexual inclusion. This does not entail that anyone has a right to sex with another person, but it does entail that duties may be imposed on (...)
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  19. Generative AI entails a credit–blame asymmetry.Sebastian Porsdam Mann, Brian D. Earp, Sven Nyholm, John Danaher, Nikolaj Møller, Hilary Bowman-Smart, Joshua Hatherley, Julian Koplin, Monika Plozza, Daniel Rodger, Peter V. Treit, Gregory Renard, John McMillan & Julian Savulescu - 2023 - Nature Machine Intelligence 5 (5):472-475.
    Generative AI programs can produce high-quality written and visual content that may be used for good or ill. We argue that a credit–blame asymmetry arises for assigning responsibility for these outputs and discuss urgent ethical and policy implications focused on large-scale language models.
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  20.  31
    Digital Duplicates and the Scarcity Problem: Might AI Make Us Less Scarce and Therefore Less Valuable?John Danaher & Sven Nyholm - 2024 - Philosophy and Technology 37 (3):1-20.
    Recent developments in AI and robotics enable people to create _personalised digital duplicates_ – these are artificial, at least partial, recreations or simulations of real people. The advent of such duplicates enables people to overcome their individual scarcity. But this comes at a cost. There is a common view among ethicists and value theorists suggesting that individual scarcity contributes to or heightens the value of a life or parts of a life. In this paper, we address this topic. We make (...)
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  21.  63
    To Each Technology Its Own Ethics: The Problem of Ethical Proliferation.Henrik Skaug Sætra & John Danaher - 2022 - Philosophy and Technology 35 (4):1-26.
    Ethics plays a key role in the normative analysis of the impacts of technology. We know that computers in general and the processing of data, the use of artificial intelligence, and the combination of computers and/or artificial intelligence with robotics are all associated with ethically relevant implications for individuals, groups, and society. In this article, we argue that while all technologies are ethically relevant, there is no need to create a separate ‘ethics of X’ or ‘X ethics’ for each and (...)
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  22. Techno-optimism: an Analysis, an Evaluation and a Modest Defence.John Danaher - 2022 - Philosophy and Technology 35 (2):1-29.
    What is techno-optimism and how can it be defended? Although techno-optimist views are widely espoused and critiqued, there have been few attempts to systematically analyse what it means to be a techno-optimist and how one might defend this view. This paper attempts to address this oversight by providing a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of techno-optimism. It is argued that techno-optimism is a pluralistic stance that comes in weak and strong forms. These vary along a number of key dimensions but each (...)
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  23. Axiological Futurism: The Systematic Study of the Future of Values.John Danaher - forthcoming - Futures.
    Human values seem to vary across time and space. What implications does this have for the future of human value? Will our human and (perhaps) post-human offspring have very different values from our own? Can we study the future of human values in an insightful and systematic way? This article makes three contributions to the debate about the future of human values. First, it argues that the systematic study of future values is both necessary in and of itself and an (...)
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  24. Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications.John Danaher & Neil McArthur - 2017 - MIT Press.
    Sexbots are coming. Given the pace of technological advances, it is inevitable that realistic robots specifically designed for people's sexual gratification will be developed in the not-too-distant future. Despite popular culture's fascination with the topic, and the emergence of the much-publicized Campaign Against Sex Robots, there has been little academic research on the social, philosophical, moral, and legal implications of robot sex. This book fills the gap, offering perspectives from philosophy, psychology, religious studies, economics, and law on the possible future (...)
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  25. What Matters for Moral Status: Behavioral or Cognitive Equivalence?John Danaher - 2021 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 30 (3):472-478.
    Henry Shevlin’s paper—“How could we know when a robot was a moral patient?” – argues that we should recognize robots and artificial intelligence (AI) as psychological moral patients if they are cognitively equivalent to other beings that we already recognize as psychological moral patients (i.e., humans and, at least some, animals). In defending this cognitive equivalence strategy, Shevlin draws inspiration from the “behavioral equivalence” strategy that I have defended in previous work but argues that it is flawed in crucial respects. (...)
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  26. Technology and moral change: the transformation of truth and trust.Henrik Skaug Sætra & John Danaher - 2022 - Ethics and Information Technology 24 (3):1-16.
    Technologies can have profound effects on social moral systems. Is there any way to systematically investigate and anticipate these potential effects? This paper aims to contribute to this emerging field on inquiry through a case study method. It focuses on two core human values—truth and trust—describes their structural properties and conceptualisations, and then considers various mechanisms through which technology is changing and can change our perspective on those values. In brief, the paper argues that technology is transforming these values by (...)
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  27. Regulating Child Sex Robots: Restriction or Experimentation?John Danaher - 2019 - Medical Law Review 27 (4):553-575.
    In July 2014, the roboticist Ronald Arkin suggested that child sex robots could be used to treat those with paedophilic predilections in the same way that methadone is used to treat heroin addicts. Taking this onboard, it would seem that there is reason to experiment with the regulation of this technology. But most people seem to disagree with this idea, with legal authorities in both the UK and US taking steps to outlaw such devices. In this paper, I subject these (...)
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  28.  56
    Algorithmic governance: Developing a research agenda through the power of collective intelligence.Kalpana Shankar, Burkhard Schafer, Niall O'Brolchain, Maria Helen Murphy, John Morison, Su-Ming Khoo, Muki Haklay, Heike Felzmann, Aisling De Paor, Anthony Behan, Rónán Kennedy, Chris Noone, Michael J. Hogan & John Danaher - 2017 - Big Data and Society 4 (2).
    We are living in an algorithmic age where mathematics and computer science are coming together in powerful new ways to influence, shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. As these algorithmic governance structures proliferate, it is vital that we ensure their effectiveness and legitimacy. That is, we need to ensure that they are an effective means for achieving a legitimate policy goal that are also procedurally fair, open and unbiased. But how can we ensure that algorithmic (...)
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  29. In Defence of the Epistemological Objection to Divine Command Theory.John Danaher - 2019 - Sophia 58 (3):381-400.
    Divine command theories come in several different forms but at their core all of these theories claim that certain moral statuses exist in virtue of the fact that God has commanded them to exist. Several authors argue that this core version of the DCT is vulnerable to an epistemological objection. According to this objection, DCT is deficient because certain groups of moral agents lack epistemic access to God’s commands. But there is confusion as to the precise nature and significance of (...)
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  30.  95
    The Benefits and Risks of Quantified Relationship Technologies: Response to Open Peer Commentaries on “The Quantified Relationship”.John Danaher, Sven Nyholm & Brian D. Earp - 2018 - American Journal of Bioethics 18 (2):3-6.
    The growth of self-tracking and personal surveillance has given rise to the Quantified Self movement. Members of this movement seek to enhance their personal well-being, productivity, and self-actualization through the tracking and gamification of personal data. The technologies that make this possible can also track and gamify aspects of our interpersonal, romantic relationships. Several authors have begun to challenge the ethical and normative implications of this development. In this article, we build upon this work to provide a detailed ethical analysis (...)
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  31. The Technological Future of Love.Sven Nyholm, John Danaher & Brian D. Earp - 2022 - In André Grahle, Natasha McKeever & Joe Saunders (eds.), Philosophy of Love in the Past, Present, and Future. Routledge. pp. 224-239.
    How might emerging and future technologies—sex robots, love drugs, anti-love drugs, or algorithms to track, quantify, and ‘gamify’ romantic relationships—change how we understand and value love? We canvass some of the main ethical worries posed by such technologies, while also considering whether there are reasons for “cautious optimism” about their implications for our lives. Along the way, we touch on some key ideas from the philosophies of love and technology.
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  32. Should we campaign against sex robots?John Danaher, Brian D. Earp & Anders Sandberg - 2017 - In John Danaher & Neil McArthur (eds.), Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications. MIT Press.
    In September 2015 a well-publicised Campaign Against Sex Robots (CASR) was launched. Modelled on the longer-standing Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the CASR opposes the development of sex robots on the grounds that the technology is being developed with a particular model of female-male relations (the prostitute-john model) in mind, and that this will prove harmful in various ways. In this chapter, we consider carefully the merits of campaigning against such a technology. We make three main arguments. First, we argue (...)
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  33. Hyperagency and the Good Life – Does Extreme Enhancement Threaten Meaning?John Danaher - 2013 - Neuroethics 7 (2):227-242.
    According to several authors, the enhancement project incorporates a quest for hyperagency - i.e. a state of affairs in which virtually every constitutive aspect of agency (beliefs, desires, moods, dispositions and so forth) is subject to our control and manipulation. This quest, it is claimed, undermines the conditions for a meaningful and worthwhile life. Thus, the enhancement project ought to be forestalled or rejected. How credible is this objection? In this article, I argue: “not very”. I do so by evaluating (...)
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  34. The Ethics of Algorithmic Outsourcing in Everyday Life.John Danaher - 2019 - In Karen Yeung & Martin Lodge (eds.), Algorithmic Regulation. Oxford University Press.
    We live in a world in which ‘smart’ algorithmic tools are regularly used to structure and control our choice environments. They do so by affecting the options with which we are presented and the choices that we are encouraged or able to make. Many of us make use of these tools in our daily lives, using them to solve personal problems and fulfill goals and ambitions. What consequences does this have for individual autonomy and how should our legal and regulatory (...)
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  35. Sexuality.John Danaher - 2020 - In Markus Dirk Dubber, Frank Pasquale & Sunit Das (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of Ai. Oxford Handbooks.
    Sex is an important part of human life. It is a source of pleasure and intimacy, and is integral to many people’s self-identity. This chapter examines the opportunities and challenges posed by the use of AI in how humans express and enact their sexualities. It does so by focusing on three main issues. First, it considers the idea of digisexuality, which according to McArthur and Twist (2017) is the label that should be applied to those ‘whose primary sexual identity comes (...)
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  36. The foundations of conscientious objection: against freedom and autonomy.Yossi Nehushtan & John Danaher - 2018 - Jurisprudence 9 (3):541-565.
    According to the common view, conscientious objection is grounded in autonomy or in ‘freedom of conscience’ and is tolerated out of respect for the objector's autonomy. Emphasising freedom of conscience or autonomy as a central concept within the issue of conscientious objection implies that the conscientious objector should have an independent choice among alternative beliefs, positions or values. In this paper it is argued that: (a) it is not true that the typical conscientious objector has such a choice when they (...)
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  37. (1 other version)Building better Sex Robots: Lessons from Feminist Pornography.John Danaher - 2019 - In Yuefang Zhou & Martin H. Fischer (eds.), Ai Love You : Developments in Human-Robot Intimate Relationships. Springer Verlag.
    How should we react to the development of sexbot technology? Taking their cue from anti-porn feminism, several academic critics lament the development of sexbot technology, arguing that it objectifies and subordinates women, is likely to promote misogynistic attitudes toward sex, and may need to be banned or restricted. In this chapter I argue for an alternative response. Taking my cue from the sex positive ‘feminist porn’ movement, I argue that the best response to the development of ‘bad’ sexbots is to (...)
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  38. An evaluative conservative case for biomedical enhancement.John Danaher - 2016 - Journal of Medical Ethics 42 (9):611-618.
    It is widely believed that a conservative moral outlook is opposed to biomedical forms of human enhancement. In this paper, I argue that this widespread belief is incorrect. Using Cohen’s evaluative conservatism as my starting point, I argue that there are strong conservative reasons to prioritise the development of biomedical enhancements. In particular, I suggest that biomedical enhancement may be essential if we are to maintain our current evaluative equilibrium (i.e. the set of values that undergird and permeate our current (...)
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  39. Should we be thinking about sex robots?John Danaher - 2017 - In John Danaher & Neil McArthur (eds.), Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications. MIT Press.
    The chapter introduces the edited collection Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications. It proposes a definition of the term 'sex robot' and examines some current prototype models. It also considers the three main ethical questions one can ask about sex robots: (i) do they benefit/harm the user? (ii) do they benefit/harm society? or (iii) do they benefit/harm the robot?
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  40. Transfer of Personality to Synthetic Human ("mind uploading") and the Social Construction of Identity.John Danaher & Sim Bamford - 2017 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 24 (11-12):6-30.
    Humans have long wondered whether they can survive the death of their physical bodies. Some people now look to technology as a means by which this might occur, using terms such 'whole brain emulation', 'mind uploading', and 'substrate independent minds' to describe a set of hypothetical procedures for transferring or emulating the functioning of a human mind on a synthetic substrate. There has been much debate about the philosophical implications of such procedures for personal survival. Most participants to that debate (...)
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  41.  31
    Should We Use Technology to Merge Minds?John Danaher & Sven Nyholm - 2021 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 30 (4):585-603.
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  42. In Defense of the Post-Work Future: Withdrawal and the Ludic Life.John Danaher - 2019 - In Michael Cholbi & Michael Weber (eds.), The Future of Work, Technology, and Basic Income. Routledge. pp. 99-116.
    A basic income might be able to correct for the income related losses of unemployment, but what about the meaning/purpose related losses? For better or worse, many people derive meaning and fulfillment from the jobs they do; if their jobs are taken away, they lose this source of meaning. If we are about the enter an era of rampant job loss as a result of advances in technology, is there a danger that it will also be an era of rampant (...)
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  43. Why AI Doomsayers are Like Sceptical Theists and Why it Matters.John Danaher - 2015 - Minds and Machines 25 (3):231-246.
    An advanced artificial intelligence could pose a significant existential risk to humanity. Several research institutes have been set-up to address those risks. And there is an increasing number of academic publications analysing and evaluating their seriousness. Nick Bostrom’s superintelligence: paths, dangers, strategies represents the apotheosis of this trend. In this article, I argue that in defending the credibility of AI risk, Bostrom makes an epistemic move that is analogous to one made by so-called sceptical theists in the debate about the (...)
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  44. A Citizen's Guide to Artificial Intelligence.James Maclaurin, John Danaher, John Zerilli, Colin Gavaghan, Alistair Knott, Joy Liddicoat & Merel Noorman - 2021 - Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
    A concise but informative overview of AI ethics and policy. -/- Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, has generated a staggering amount of hype in the past several years. Is it the game-changer it's been cracked up to be? If so, how is it changing the game? How is it likely to affect us as customers, tenants, aspiring homeowners, students, educators, patients, clients, prison inmates, members of ethnic and sexual minorities, and voters in liberal democracies? Authored by experts in fields (...)
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  45. Why Internal Moral Enhancement Might Be politically Better than External Moral Enhancement.John Danaher - 2016 - Neuroethics 12 (1):39-54.
    Technology could be used to improve morality but it could do so in different ways. Some technologies could augment and enhance moral behaviour externally by using external cues and signals to push and pull us towards morally appropriate behaviours. Other technologies could enhance moral behaviour internally by directly altering the way in which the brain captures and processes morally salient information or initiates moral action. The question is whether there is any reason to prefer one method over the other? In (...)
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  46. (1 other version)Moral Enhancement and Moral Freedom: A Critique of the Little Alex Problem.John Danaher - 2018 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 83:233-250.
    A common objection to moral enhancement is that it would undermine our moral freedom and that this is a bad thing because moral freedom is a great good. Michael Hauskeller has defended this view on a couple of occasions using an arresting thought experiment called the 'Little Alex' problem. In this paper, I reconstruct the argument Hauskeller derives from this thought experiment and subject it to critical scrutiny. I claim that the argument ultimately fails because (a) it assumes that moral (...)
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  47. The Law and Ethics of Virtual Sexual Assault.John Danaher - forthcoming - In Barfield Enter Author Name Without Selecting A. Profile: Woodrow & Blitz Enter Author Name Without Selecting A. Profile: Marc (eds.), The Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality. Edward Elgar Press.
    This chapter provides a general overview and introduction to the law and ethics of virtual sexual assault. It offers a definition of the phenomenon and argues that there are six interesting types. It then asks and answers three questions: (i) should we criminalise virtual sexual assault? (ii) can you be held responsible for virtual sexual assault? and (iii) are there issues with 'consent' to virtual sexual activity that might make it difficult to prosecute or punish virtual sexual assault?
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  48. Anticipatory gaps challenge the public governance of heritable human genome editing.Jon Rueda, Seppe Segers, Jeroen Hopster, Karolina Kudlek, Belén Liedo, Samuela Marchiori & John Danaher - 2024 - Journal of Medical Ethics.
    Considering public moral attitudes is a hallmark of the anticipatory governance of emerging biotechnologies, such as heritable human genome editing. However, such anticipatory governance often overlooks that future morality is open to change and that future generations may perform different moral assessments on the very biotechnologies we are trying to govern in the present. In this article, we identify an ’anticipatory gap’ that has not been sufficiently addressed in the discussion on the public governance of heritable genome editing, namely, uncertainty (...)
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  49. Why We Should Create Artificial Offspring: Meaning and the Collective Afterlife.John Danaher - 2018 - Science and Engineering Ethics 24 (4):1097-1118.
    This article argues that the creation of artificial offspring could make our lives more meaningful. By ‘artificial offspring’ I mean beings that we construct, with a mix of human and non-human-like qualities. Robotic artificial intelligences are paradigmatic examples of the form. There are two reasons for thinking that the creation of such beings could make our lives more meaningful and valuable. The first is that the existence of a collective afterlife—i.e. a set of human-like lives that continue after we die—is (...)
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  50. Moral Uncertainty and Our Relationships with Unknown Minds.John Danaher - 2023 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 32 (4):482-495.
    We are sometimes unsure of the moral status of our relationships with other entities. Recent case studies in this uncertainty include our relationships with artificial agents (robots, assistant AI, etc.), animals, and patients with “locked-in” syndrome. Do these entities have basic moral standing? Could they count as true friends or lovers? What should we do when we do not know the answer to these questions? An influential line of reasoning suggests that, in such cases of moral uncertainty, we need meta-moral (...)
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