Review of "The Machine Question: Critical Perspectives on AI, Robots, and Ethics (original) (raw)

The Machine Question: Critical Perspectives on AI, Robots and Ethics

2012

One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. Much recent attention has been devoted to the "animal question"--consideration of the moral status of nonhuman animals. In this book, David Gunkel takes up the "machine question": whether and to what extent intelligent and autonomous machines of our own making can be considered to have legitimate moral responsibilities and any legitimate claim to moral consideration. The machine question poses a fundamental challenge to moral thinking, questioning the traditional philosophical conceptualization of technology as a tool or instrument to be used by human agents. Gunkel begins by addressing the question of machine moral agency: whether a machine might be considered a legitimate moral agent that could be held responsible for decisions and actions. He then approaches the machine question from the other side, considering whether a machine might be a moral patient due legitimate moral consideration. Finally, Gunkel considers some recent innovations in moral philosophy and critical theory that complicate the machine question, deconstructing the binary agent–patient opposition itself. Technological advances may prompt us to wonder if the science fiction of computers and robots whose actions affect their human companions (think of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey) could become science fact. Gunkel's argument promises to influence future considerations of ethics, ourselves, and the other entities who inhabit this world.

Do Machines Have Rights? Ethics in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

Aurora, 2014

David J. Gunkel was a keynote speaker for “Identity, Agency, and the Digital Nexus”, April 2013, SSHRC funded international symposium hosted by Athabasca University. His talk challenged the audience to reframe and rethink the “human-machine” binary in 21st century understandings of ethics and agency. Later that year Gunkel talked with Paul Kellogg over Skype to discuss some of the points raised in the presentation, and other key ideas embedded in Gunkel's 2012 publication, "The Machine Question: Critical Perspectives on AI, Robots and Ethics." Gunkel is the Presidential Teaching Professor of Communication Studies at Northern Illinois University. The symposium was funded by a Connection Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and organized by Dr. Raphael Foshay, MA-IS Program Director at Athabasca University.

Rethinking Machine Ethics in an Era of Ubiquitous Technology

This timely publication features thoroughly researched articles on the topics of artificial moral agency, cyber-warfare, transhumanism, organic neural nets, human worker replacement, automaticity and global governance, security and surveillance, military drones, and more.

Human-Machine Communication: Ethical Perspectives

2020

Digital voice assistants, social robots, artificial intelligence and progressively refined algorithms are ushering in new modes of interaction that increasingly mediates between human and machine. This panel will engage ethical questions related to those modes of interaction, ranging from discussion of automated journalism to virtual performers, digital research assistants to toys. The central concern among the papers to be presented is to probe the nature of the relationships forged between humans and machines when the latter are interlocutors and creators and not merely passive recipients of data through interaction. What new ethical issues are emerging as machines create journalism, as they create music and interact in performance, as they engage in research, as they become a part of childrens’ social circle?

The Machine Question: Ethics, Alterity and Technology

This chapter, published in "Thinking Otherwise: Philosophy, Communication, Technology" (2007) represents something like a manifesto for the rights of machines. It considers the machine (AIs, robots, autonomous systems, etc.) as both moral agent and moral patient and argues for the ethical standing and appropriate treatment of artificial entities. The title refers to and expands on the "animal question," which has had considerable influence in moral philosophy during the later half of the 20th century. The machine question takes this moral innovation one step further by demonstrating that the machine, the other of the animal other, remains one of the last socially acceptable moral prejudices and arguing for a thinking of ethics that is able to proceed otherwise.

Just an Artifact: Why Machines Are Perceived as Moral Agents

2011

Abstract How obliged can we be to AI, and how much danger does it pose us? A surprising proportion of our society holds exaggerated fears or hopes for AI, such as the fear of robot world conquest, or the hope that AI will indefinitely perpetuate our culture. These misapprehensions are symptomatic of a larger problem--a confusion about the nature and origins of ethics and its role in society.