Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- General Introduction
- PART I THE NATURE OF MACHINE ETHICS
- PART II THE IMPORTANCE OF MACHINE ETHICS
- PART III ISSUES CONCERNING MACHINE ETHICS
- Introduction
- 6 What Matters to a Machine?
- 7 Machine Ethics and the Idea of a More-Than-Human Moral World
- 8 On Computable Morality
- 9 When Is a Robot a Moral Agent?
- 10 Philosophical Concerns with Machine Ethics
- 11 Computer Systems
- 12 On the Morality of Artificial Agents
- 13 Legal Rights for Machines
- PART IV APPROACHES TO MACHINE ETHICS
- PART V VISIONS FOR MACHINE ETHICS
- References
7 - Machine Ethics and the Idea of a More-Than-Human Moral World
from PART III - ISSUES CONCERNING MACHINE ETHICS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- General Introduction
- PART I THE NATURE OF MACHINE ETHICS
- PART II THE IMPORTANCE OF MACHINE ETHICS
- PART III ISSUES CONCERNING MACHINE ETHICS
- Introduction
- 6 What Matters to a Machine?
- 7 Machine Ethics and the Idea of a More-Than-Human Moral World
- 8 On Computable Morality
- 9 When Is a Robot a Moral Agent?
- 10 Philosophical Concerns with Machine Ethics
- 11 Computer Systems
- 12 On the Morality of Artificial Agents
- 13 Legal Rights for Machines
- PART IV APPROACHES TO MACHINE ETHICS
- PART V VISIONS FOR MACHINE ETHICS
- References
Summary
“We are the species equivalent of that schizoid pair, Mr Hyde and Dr Jekyll; we have the capacity for disastrous destruction but also the potential to found a magnificent civilization. Hyde led us to use technology badly; we misused energy and overpopulated the earth, but we will not sustain civilization by abandoning technology. We have instead to use it wisely, as Dr Jekyll would do, with the health of the Earth, not the health of people, in mind.”
–Lovelock 2006: 6–7Introduction
In this paper i will discuss some of the broad philosophical issues that apply to the field of machine ethics. ME is often seen primarily as a practical research area involving the modeling and implementation of artificial moral agents. However this shades into a broader, more theoretical inquiry into the nature of ethical agency and moral value as seen from an AI or information-theoretical point of view, as well as the extent to which autonomous AI agents can have moral status of different kinds. We can refer to these as practical and philosophical ME respectively.
Practical ME has various kinds of objectives. Some are technically well defined and relatively close to market, such as the development of ethically responsive robot care assistants or automated advisers for clinicians on medical ethics issues. Other practical ME aims are more long term, such as the design of a general purpose ethical reasoner/advisor – or perhaps even a “genuine” moral agent with a status equal (or as equal as possible) to human moral agents.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Machine Ethics , pp. 115 - 137Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
References
. (1996) The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. NY: Random House.Google Scholar
. (2005) The World in My Mind, My Mind In The World: Key Mechanisms of Consciousness in Humans, Animals and Machines. Thorverton, Exeter: Imprint AcademicGoogle Scholar
. (2004) “The Future of Human Evolution,” in , ed. Death and Anti-Death: Two Hundred Years after Kant; Fifty Years after Turing. Palo Alto, CA: Ria U.P., 339–371.Google Scholar
. (2005) “The Ethics of Superintelligent Machines,” in , , and (eds) Symposium on Cognitive, Emotive and Ethical aspects of Decision-making in Humans and Artificial Intelligence. InterSymp 05, Windsor, Ont: IIAS Press.Google Scholar
(2005) “Android Science and the Animal Rights Movement: Are there Analogies?” Proceedings of CogSci-2005 Workshop. Cognitive Science Society, Stresa, Italy, pp. 127–136.Google Scholar
. (2008). “Social Understanding through Direct Perception? Yes, by Interacting.” Consciousness and Cognition 18, 535–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
. & . (2007). “Participatory Sense-Making: An Enactive Approach to Social Cognition.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. 6 (4), 485–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1978) “Why you Can't Make a Computer that Feels Pain.” Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 190–232.Google Scholar
. (1998) “The Practical Requirements for Making a Conscious Robot.” in , Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds. London: Penguin Books, 153 – 170.Google Scholar
. (2005), “Autopoiesis, Adaptivity, Teleology, Agency.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. 4, 97–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. (2007) “After the Humans are Gone.'J. Experimental and Theoretical Art. Intell. 19(1): 55–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. (2004). “The Pragmatism of Life in Poststructuralist Times.” Environment and Planning A. 36, 437–450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2008a) ‘Artificial Intelligence's New Frontier: Artificial Companions and the Fourth Revolution’, Metaphilosophy, 39 (4–5), 651–655.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. (2008b), “Information Ethics, its Nature and Scope,” in and , eds., Moral Philosophy and Information Technology, Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 40–65.Google Scholar
. (2001) “The Practice of Mind: Theory, Simulation or Primary Interaction?” Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8 (5–7), 83–108Google Scholar
. (2008) “Direct Perception in the Intersubjective Context.” Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 535–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
. (2006) “Ten Years to a Positive Singularity (If we Really, Really Try).” Talk to Transvision 2006, Helsinki, Finland. http://www.goertzel.org/papers/tenyears.htm.Google Scholar
(2003) The Cognitive Approach to Conscious Machines. Thorverton, Devon: Imprint Academic.Google Scholar
., ed. (2003) Machine Consciousness. Special issue of Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10 (4–5).
. (1996/2001) The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern U.P. (originally published by Harper & Row N.Y. in 1996).Google Scholar
. (2000) “Why the Future Doesn't Need Us.” Wired 8 (04). www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html.Google Scholar
. (2001) “One Half of An Argument” (Response to Lanier 2000). The Edge (online publication), 8.4.01. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kurzweil/kurzweil_index.html.
. (2004) “‘Playing God’ and the Construction of Artificial Persons.” In , and , eds., Symposium on Cognitive, Emotive and Ethical aspects of Decision-making in Humans and Artificial Intelligence, InterSymp 04, Windsor, Ont: IIAS Press.Google Scholar
. (2000) “One Half a Manifesto” The Edge, (online publication), 11.11.00. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier/lanier_index.html.Google Scholar
. (1948) “A Land Ethic,” in A Sand County Almanac with Essays on Conservation from Round River. New York: Oxford U.P.Google Scholar
. (2006) The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back, and How we can Still Save Humanity. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
. & . (1980) Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2006) “The Nature, Importance and Difficulty of Machine Ethics.” IEEE Intelligent Systems 21(4), 18–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. (1988) Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P.Google Scholar
. (1973) ‘The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movements’ Inquiry 16: 95–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. & . (2006) “In the Hands of Machines? The Future of Aged Care.” Minds and Machines 16 (2), 141–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. & . (1994) The Greening of Ethics: From Human Chauvinism to Deep-Green Theory. Cambridge: White Horse Press.Google Scholar
. (2007) Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P.Google Scholar
. (2000) “Towards an Ethics for EPersons.” Proc. AISB'00 Symposium on AI, Ethics and (Quasi-) Human Rights, University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
. (2007) “Two conceptions of Machine Phenomenality.” Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14 (7).Google Scholar
., ., ., eds (2007) Machine Consciousness: Embodiment and Imagination. Special issue of Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14 (4).
. & . (2007) “Consciousness in Infants,” in and , eds. The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Oxford: Blackwell & Co., 41–57.Google Scholar
. (1993) “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era.” Whole Earth Review, 77.Google Scholar
. & . (2009) Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong. Oxford: Oxford U.P.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. (1994) The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life. N.Y.: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
(2001) “Creating Friendly AI.” www.singinst.org/upload/CFAI.html.
(2008) “Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgement of Global Risks,” in and , eds. Global Catastrophic Risks. Oxford: Oxford U.P. Pp. 91–119.Google Scholar
- 17
- Cited by