Artificial intelligence and responsibility gaps: what is the problem?

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed tremendous progress in artificial intelligence and in the development of autonomous systems that rely on artificial intelligence. Critics, however, have pointed to the difficulty of allocating responsibility for the actions of an autonomous system, especially when the autonomous system causes harm or damage. The highly autonomous behavior of such systems, for which neither the programmer, the manufacturer, nor the operator seems to be responsible, has been suspected to generate responsibility gaps. This has been the cause of much concern. In this article, I propose a more optimistic view on artificial intelligence, raising two challenges for responsibility gap pessimists. First, proponents of responsibility gaps must say more about when responsibility gaps occur. Once we accept a difficult-to-reject plausibility constraint on the emergence of such gaps, it becomes apparent that the situations in which responsibility gaps occur are unclear. Second, assuming that responsibility gaps occur, more must be said about why we should be concerned about such gaps in the first place. I proceed by defusing what I take to be the two most important concerns about responsibility gaps, one relating to the consequences of responsibility gaps and the other relating to violations of jus in bello.

Best Practices in Construction 4.0 – Catalysts of digital innovations (Part I)

“…Due to the serious impacts on people and society, the study recognizes a strong need: Technical feasibility requires more social responsibility. In order for the construction industry to be able to set its agenda in accordance with the European AI strategy and the UN sustainability goals -according to a derivation of the study results-the discourse must also be conducted here at all political, economic and social levels [37,38] (Figure 5). Innovative technologies enable intelligent, resilient ecosystems, such as Circular Economies, Cradle to Cradle, Smart Cities.…”

Responsibility Gaps and Retributive Dispositions: Evidence from the US, Japan and Germany

“…(iii) Distribution of Responsibility: Some have questioned the very existence of responsibility gaps (e.g. Burri, 2018;Köhler et al 2019;Himmelreich, 2019;Lauwaert, 2021, Tigard, 2021, Königs, 2022. Others have proposed interesting arguments according to which some human agent can standardly be held responsible, for instance because they must be understood as being in a supervisory role (Nyholm, 2018(Nyholm, , 2020 for further proposals, see e.g.…”

The value of responsibility gaps in algorithmic decision-making

“…Of course, by deciding to implement the AI system in the first place, it seems plausible that the government is at least partially responsible for the actions of the AI system. This line of reasoning has led some to call into question the very possibility of responsibility gaps (Tigard, 2021;Hindriks & Veluwenkamp, 2023;Königs, 2022). Perhaps, for some salient class of decisions, there will always be a particular link in some causal chain of events leading up to the introduction of an alleged responsibility gap to which we can ascribe responsibility.…”