Designing AI with Rights, Consciousness, Self-Respect, and Freedom

Schwitzgebel, Eric; Garza, Mara

doi:10.1093/oso/9780190905033.003.0017

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…our other justmentioned example of maximally humanlike robots with high degrees of artificial intelligence (e.g. Danaher, 2020;Schwitzgebel & Garza, 2020). We are not yet living in a world featuring such technologies.…”

Section: Examples Of Ethical Debates That Can Be Viewed As Part Of Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Offsetting Present Risks, Preempting Future Harms, and the Ethics of a ‘New Normal’

Nyholm

Maheshwari

2022

Philosophy of Engineering and Technology

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The ongoing pandemic has led some people to speak about a ‘new normal’, since we have temporarily had to radically change how we live our lives to protect ourselves and others from the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That expression – ‘a new normal’ – has been also be used in other contexts, such as in relation to societal disruptions brought about by things like new technologies or climate change. What this general idea of a ‘new normal’ means is unclear and hard to characterise, and there are diverging views about how to respond to a new normal, but one feature of a desirable new normal that most people would agree on is that it should be ‘safer’: safer technologies, safer institutions, and so on. But it is also important to consider what other ethical considerations and principles should be part of an ethics of a new normal. And it is also interesting to explore similarities and differences among different types of cases that can be classified as situations where we face a new normal. In this chapter, we will discuss the general idea of an ethics of a new normal, and consider what ethical distinctions, values, and principles are likely to be relevant in most instances where we face a new normal, including ethical considerations related to risk mitigation and ways of offsetting potential harms.

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Section: Examples Of Ethical Debates That Can Be Viewed As Part Of Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Offsetting Present Risks, Preempting Future Harms, and the Ethics of a ‘New Normal’

Nyholm

Maheshwari

2022

Philosophy of Engineering and Technology

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“…4 These authors typically focus on AI systems in the form of (humanoid) robots, rather than software agents or computer programs. Philosophers like Mark Coeckelbergh [43], David Gunkel [44], John Danaher [45], Janina Loh [46], Eric Schwitzgebel and Mara Garza [47,48], and Chris Wareham [49] argue that some robots are or might become moral persons, to whom we owe some degree of moral consideration.…”

Section: The Value Of Control and Types Of Ai Agency Part Ii: Humanoi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Personally, I am skeptical about the idea that any robots might have, or come to have, properties or abilities that would genuinely make them into full moral persons. In particular, I am skeptical about the idea-which Schwitzgebel and Garza [47,48] take very seriously-that robots might come to have humanlike minds, with humanlike consciousness and emotions. But I grant them that if robots could come to have such minds, then they would potentially, for this reason, become full moral persons to whom we owe the same form of moral consideration that we owe to our fellow human beings.…”

Section: The Value Of Control and Types Of Ai Agency Part Ii: Humanoi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A new control problem? Humanoid robots, artificial intelligence, and the value of control

Nyholm

2022

AI Ethics

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The control problem related to robots and AI usually discussed is that we might lose control over advanced technologies. When authors like Nick Bostrom and Stuart Russell discuss this control problem, they write in a way that suggests that having as much control as possible is good while losing control is bad. In life in general, however, not all forms of control are unambiguously positive and unproblematic. Some forms—e.g. control over other persons—are ethically problematic. Other forms of control are positive, and perhaps even intrinsically good. For example, one form of control that many philosophers have argued is intrinsically good and a virtue is self-control. In this paper, I relate these questions about control and its value to different forms of robots and AI more generally. I argue that the more robots are made to resemble human beings, the more problematic it becomes—at least symbolically speaking—to want to exercise full control over these robots. After all, it is unethical for one human being to want to fully control another human being. Accordingly, it might be seen as problematic—viz. as representing something intrinsically bad—to want to create humanoid robots that we exercise complete control over. In contrast, if there are forms of AI such that control over them can be seen as a form of self-control, then this might be seen as a virtuous form of control. The “new control problem”, as I call it, is the question of under what circumstances retaining and exercising complete control over robots and AI is unambiguously ethically good.

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“…Though they may seem far‐fetched at present, we should consider the possibility of 1 day encountering beings like this – or intentionally or unintentionally creating something like them with future advances in AI or bioengineering (cf. Liao, 2020; Schwitzgebel and Garza, 2015, 2020). For understanding our ethical obligations to a strange or alien mind, should our guiding question be about the presence or absence or consciousness per se , or specifically the presence or absence of conscious pleasure and suffering?…”

Section: What Is Sentientism?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sentientism, Motivation, and Philosophical Vulcans

Roelofs

2022

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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If moral status depends on the capacity for consciousness, what kind of consciousness matters exactly? Two popular answers are that any kind of consciousness matters (Broad Sentientism), and that what matters is the capacity for pleasure and suffering (Narrow Sentientism). I argue that the broad answer is too broad, while the narrow answer is likely too narrow, as Chalmers has recently argued by appeal to 'philosophical Vulcans'. I defend a middle position, Motivational Sentientism, on which what matters is motivating consciousness: any kind of consciousness which presents its subject with reasons for action.

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Designing AI with Rights, Consciousness, Self-Respect, and Freedom

Cited by 10 publications

References 29 publications

Offsetting Present Risks, Preempting Future Harms, and the Ethics of a ‘New Normal’

Offsetting Present Risks, Preempting Future Harms, and the Ethics of a ‘New Normal’

A new control problem? Humanoid robots, artificial intelligence, and the value of control

Sentientism, Motivation, and Philosophical Vulcans

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