Instrumental Robots.

Journal: Science and engineering ethics
Published Date: Aug 19, 2020

Abstract

Advances in artificial intelligence research allow us to build fairly sophisticated agents: robots and computer programs capable of acting and deciding on their own (in some sense). These systems raise questions about who is responsible when something goes wrong-when such systems harm or kill humans. In a recent paper, Sven Nyholm has suggested that, because current AI will likely possess what we might call "supervised agency", the theory of responsibility for individual agency is the wrong place to look for an answer to the question of responsibility. Instead, or so argues Nyholm, because supervised agency is a form of collaborative agency-of acting together-the right place to look is the theory of collaborative responsibility-responsibility in cases of acting together. This paper concedes that current AI will possess supervised agency, but argues that it is nevertheless wrong to think of the relevant human-AI interactions as a form of collaborative agency and, hence, that responsibility in cases of collaborative agency is not the right place to look for the responsibility-grounding relation in human-AI interactions. It also suggests that the right place to look for this responsibility-grounding relation in human-AI interactions is the use of certain sorts of agents as instruments.

Authors

  • Sebastian Köhler
    School of ITEE, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia, Institute for Medical Genetics and Human Genetics, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 13353 Berlin, Germany, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK, National Institute of Informatics, Hitotsubashi, Tokyo, Japan, Mouse Informatics Group, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SA, UK, LASIGE, Departamento de Informática, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal, Genetic Services of Western Australia, King Edward Memorial Hospital, WA 6008, Australia, School of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Western Australia, WA 6008, Australia, Institute for Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Murdoch University, WA 6150, Australia, Office of Population Health, Public Health and Clinical Services Division, Western Australian Department of Health, WA 6004, Australia, Academic Department of Medical Genetics, Sydney Children's Hospitals Network (Westmead), NSW 2145, Australia, Discipline of Genetic Medicine, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Institute for Bioinformatics, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany and Berlin Brandenburg Center for Regenerative Therapies, 13353 Berlin, Germany.

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