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What Do We Owe to Novel Synthetic Beings and How Can We Be Sure?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2021

Alex McKeown
Alex McKeown*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, OxfordOX3 7JX, United Kingdom
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Embodiment is typically given insufficient weight in debates concerning the moral status of Novel Synthetic Beings (NSBs) such as sentient or sapient Artificial Intelligences (AIs). Discussion usually turns on whether AIs are conscious or self-aware, but this does not exhaust what is morally relevant. Since moral agency encompasses what a being wants to do, the means by which it enacts choices in the world is a feature of such agency. In determining the moral status of NSBs and our obligations to them, therefore, we must consider how their corporeality shapes their options, preferences, values, and is constitutive of their moral universe. Analysing AI embodiment and the coupling between cognition and world, the paper shows why determination of moral status is only sensible in terms of the whole being, rather than mental sophistication alone, and why failure to do this leads to an impoverished account of our obligations to such NSBs.

Keywords

AIembodimentconsciousnesscouplingagencymoral status
Type
Commentary
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 479 - 491
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

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61. There are (at least) two challenges to consider here. First, David Lawrence suggested that I have not gone far enough here insofar as it is not probable but certain that an AI would have plans involving its physical capabilities. Second, by contrast, in Superintelligence (2014), Bostrom expresses scepticism—in the case of superintelligent AI at least—that an AI’s plans would be scrutable to us, since this could be comparable to, for example, a beetle attempting to discern the intentions of a human; or in spite of its intelligence it might have very narrow technical goals that exclude much of what we recognize as important for flourishing in humans. I concede to have no definite answer to either challenge beyond observation of humans and sentient animals. I also accept in response to the second the possibility that my judgement may be overly anthropomorphic. Nevertheless, since we have not yet encountered true AI, we have to start somewhere, so I suggest that this cautious heuristic is reasonable. Thanks also to Eddie Jacobs for a helpful revision of this point as it pertains to knowledge of the intentions of Sophons, and to David Lyreskog for related remarks offering a new interpretation of the reasons for the mutual inscrutability between Samantha and Theodore.