Can Artificial Intelligence Make Art?

Mikalonytė, Elzė Sigutė; Kneer, Markus

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3827314

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…For example, Banks asked participants directly whether they thought a particular robot had a mind, and roughly 60% said no [41]. Exploring folk conceptions of art produced by AI systems, Mikalonytė and Kneer found that people were unwilling to ascribe artistic intentions to such systems, and they do not consider them artists, even though they do think their creations can constitute art [47]. Bigman and Gray showed (across a number of different scenarios) that artificial agents are attributed less ability to communicate with others, plan their actions and think things through, than a committee composed of humans [34].…”

Section: Ascription Of Mental States To Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Guilty Artificial Minds: Folk Attributions of Mens Rea and Culpability to Artificially Intelligent Agents

Stuart

Kneer

2021

Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.

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While philosophers hold that it is patently absurd to blame robots or hold them morally responsible [1], a series of recent empirical studies suggest that people do ascribe blame to AI systems and robots in certain contexts [2]. This is disconcerting: Blame might be shifted from the owners, users or designers of AI systems to the systems themselves, leading to the diminished accountability of the responsible human agents [3]. In this paper, we explore one of the potential underlying reasons for robot blame, namely the folk's willingness to ascribe inculpating mental states or "mens rea" to robots. In a vignette-based experiment (N=513), we presented participants with a situation in which an agent knowingly runs the risk of bringing about substantial harm. We manipulated agent type (human v. group agent v. AI-driven robot) and outcome (neutral v. bad), and measured both moral judgment (wrongness of the action and blameworthiness of the agent) and mental states attributed to the agent (recklessness and the desire to inflict harm). We found that (i) judgments of wrongness and blame were relatively similar across agent types, possibly because (ii) attributions of mental states were, as suspected, similar across agent types. This raised the question -also explored in the experiment -whether people attribute knowledge and desire to robots in a merely metaphorical way (e.g., the robot "knew" rather than really knew). However, (iii), according to our data people were unwilling to downgrade to mens rea in a merely metaphorical sense when given the chance. Finally, (iv), we report a surprising and novel finding, which we call the inverse outcome effect on robot blame: People were less willing to blame artificial agents for bad outcomes than for neutral outcomes. This suggests that they are implicitly aware of the dangers of overattributing blame to robots when harm comes to pass, such as inappropriately letting the responsible human agent off the moral hook.

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Section: Ascription Of Mental States To Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Guilty Artificial Minds: Folk Attributions of Mens Rea and Culpability to Artificially Intelligent Agents

Stuart

Kneer

2021

Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.

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“…In contrast to the ascription of epistemic states and intentions in moral contexts, people are much less willing to ascribe artistic intentions (or the requisite beliefs and desires) to AI‐driven agents. Even in situations in which participants deem a painting made by an artificial agent art , they are unwilling to say that the agent wanted to make a painting, believed it was making a painting, or intentionally made a painting (Mikalonytė & Kneer, 2021). Curiously then (yet consistent with the unwillingness to ascribe the requisite mental states), people think that artificial agents cannot be artists even though their creations can be deemed art.…”

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confidence: 99%

Can a Robot Lie? Exploring the Folk Concept of Lying as Applied to Artificial Agents

Kneer

2021

Cognitive Science

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The potential capacity for robots to deceive has received considerable attention recently. Many papers explore the technical possibility for a robot to engage in deception for beneficial purposes (e.g., in education or health). In this short experimental paper, I focus on a more paradigmatic case: robot lying (lying being the textbook example of deception) for nonbeneficial purposes as judged from the human point of view. More precisely, I present an empirical experiment that investigates the following three questions: (a) Are ordinary people willing to ascribe deceptive intentions to artificial agents? (b) Are they as willing to judge a robot lie as a lie as they would be when human agents engage in verbal deception? (c) Do people blame a lying artificial agent to the same extent as a lying human agent? The response to all three questions is a resounding yes. This, I argue, implies that robot deception and its normative consequences deserve considerably more attention than they presently receive.

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“…In contrast to the ascription of epistemic states and intentions in moral contexts, people are much less willing to ascribe artistic intentions (or the requisite beliefs and desires) to AI-driven agents. Even in situations in which participants deem a painting made by an artificial agent art, they are unwilling to say that the agent wanted to make a painting, believed it was making a painting, or intentionally made a painting (Mikalonytė & Kneer, 2021). Curiously then (yet consistent with the unwillingness to ascribe the requisite mental states), people think that artificial agents cannot be artists even though their creations can be deemed art.…”

Section: Open Research Badgesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can a Robot Lie? Exploring the Folk Concept of Lying as Applied to Artificial Agents

Kneer

2023

SSRN Journal

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Can Artificial Intelligence Make Art?

Cited by 14 publications

References 43 publications

Guilty Artificial Minds: Folk Attributions of Mens Rea and Culpability to Artificially Intelligent Agents

Guilty Artificial Minds: Folk Attributions of Mens Rea and Culpability to Artificially Intelligent Agents

Can a Robot Lie? Exploring the Folk Concept of Lying as Applied to Artificial Agents

Can a Robot Lie? Exploring the Folk Concept of Lying as Applied to Artificial Agents

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