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Cited by 285

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 84 of the 84 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Patiency is not a virtue: the design of intelligent systems and systems of ethics

Open access
Bryson, Joanna J.·2018·Ethics and Information Technology

Abstract

The question of whether AI systems such as robots can or should be afforded moral agency or patiency is not one amenable either to discovery or simple reasoning, because we as societies constantly reconstruct our artefacts, including our ethical systems. Consequently, the place of AI systems in society is a matter of normative, not descriptive ethics. Here I start from a functionalist assumption, that ethics is the set of behaviour that maintains a society. This assumption allows me to exploit the theoretical biology of sociality and autonomy to explain our moral intuitions. From this grounding I extend to consider possible ethics for maintaining either human- or of artefact-centred societies. I conclude that while constructing AI systems as either moral agents or patients is possible, neither is desirable. In particular, I argue that we are unlikely to construct a coherent ethics in which it it is ethical to afford AI moral subjectivity. We are therefore obliged not to build AI we are obliged to.

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Metadata

Authors
Bryson, J. J.
Venue
Ethics and Information Technology
Published
2018-02-16
Volume
20
Issue
1
Pages
15-26
ISSN
  • 1388-1957 (ISSN-L)
  • 1572-8439
OpenAlex
W2786522954
Cited by
285
References
84
FWCI
35.62
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
hybrid

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Bryson, J. J. (2018). Patiency is not a virtue: the design of intelligent systems and systems of ethics. Ethics and Information Technology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9448-6

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