Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:34:25.611Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Artificial life, artificial agents, virtual realities: technologies of autonomous agency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Luciano Floridi
Affiliation:
University of Hertfordshire
Get access

Summary

Introduction

This chapter discusses ethical issues arising in connection with artificial life (non carbon-based), artificial agents (physically embodied robots and software agents or ‘bots’) and virtual reality. To different degrees, each of these technologies has a tinge of science fiction, but they are nevertheless all far enough advanced to raise current and pressing ethical issues. Each of them can be considered in the context of general ethical issues raised by philosophers of technology. These include worries about unintended harms, ranging from incremental erosion of human freedom and dignity as a result of over-dependence on machines, to the danger of a huge catastrophe by technological failure. They also include general worries about the difficulty of assessing risks and rewards of technological development, and about the potential of technology to concentrate political and economic power in the hands of those who have privileged access or technical knowledge, creating a de facto technocracy or fostering economic injustice.

The specific ethical issues on which this chapter is focused arise from the potential for autonomous agency that is afforded by computational agents and environments. The chapter begins with a brief survey of the technologies involved, subdividing both artificial agents and virtual reality to produce a list of five different kinds of technology. Next comes a discussion of the notion of autonomy as it applies to people and to information-processing artefacts. The ethical issues arising in the context of each of the five technologies are then described, followed by some concluding remarks.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×