Could Social Robots Make Us Kinder or Crueller to Humans and Animals?

Abstract

The Montréal Declaration for Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence states that emerging technologies ought not "encourage cruel behaviour towards robots that take on the appearance of human beings or animals and act in a similar fashion." The idea of a causal link between cruelty and kindness to artiicial and living beings, human or animal, is controversial and underexplored, despite its increasing relevance to robotics. Kate Darling recently marshalled Immanuel Kant's argument-that cruelty to animals promotes cruelty to people-to argue for an analogous link concerning social robots. Others, such as Johnson and Verdicchio, have counter-argued that animal analogies are often lawed, partly because they ignore social robots' true nature, including their lack of sentience. This, they say, weakens Darling's argument that social robots will have virtue-promoting or vice-promoting efects regarding our treatment of living beings. Certain ideas in this debate, including those of anthropomorphism, projection, animal analogies, and Kant's causal claim, require clariication and critical attention. Concentrating on robot animals, this paper examines strengths and weaknesses on both sides of this argument. It inds there is some reason for thinking that social robots may causally afect virtue, especially in terms of the moral development of children and responses to nonhuman animals. This conclusion has implications for future robot design and interaction.

Socio-cognitive biases in folk AI ethics and risk discourse

“…Even if it were in some way irrational to worry about the wellbeing of a robot toy, we think it is worthwhile to consider the impact on the people who interact with the robots [36]. Indeed, some philosophers (following Kant) have proposed an analogous case in how the treatment of animals affects us.…”

How to Use Virtue Ethics for Thinking About the Moral Standing of Social Robots: A Relational Interpretation in Terms of Practices, Habits, and Performance

“…Cappuccio et al [7] have argued for giving social robots moral consideration that is not based on intrinsic moral dignity and that does not attribute rights, but on the idea that relationships with robots offer to human agents opportunities to cultivate vices and virtues. And in this journal Coghlan et al [16] have reported that social robots, for example robots in the shape of animals, may affect virtue in terms of effects on the moral development of children and responses to nonhuman animals. Earlier I have discussed virtue and the good life in relation to care robots [12] and environmental technologies [10].…”

“…In the current virtue ethics of robotics literature, such relational elements are certainly present, but much more work is needed to develop this dimension of virtue and its relation to technology. For example, while Vallor [34] defines human beings as relational beings 'whose identity is formed through a network of relationships' [34,16] and discusses care practices (226), a systematic account of the role of practice viz-à-viz technomoral virtues and of the link between virtue and practices are missing. The latter can be found for instance in the work of MacIntyre (see below), but this corpus is not engaged with.…”

Kuinka ihmismieli vääristää keskustelua tekoälyn riskeistä ja etiikasta – Kognitiotieteellisiä näkökulmia keskusteluun

“…Robottien pahoinpitelijöiden moraalinen kauhistelu kuitenkin peittää todellisen moraalisen ongelman. Sen sijaan, että oltaisiin huolissaan robottien puolesta, olisi asiaankuuluvampaa olla huolissaan niiden kanssa vuorovaikutuksessa olevien ihmisten puolesta (Coghlan, Vetere, Waycott, & Barbosa Neves, 2019). On täysin mahdollista, että robottien ihmistämisestä johtuen niiden raaka kohtelu voi luoda ympäristön, jossa niiden kanssa vuorovaikutuksessa olevat ihmiset kehittävät moraalisia paheita.…”