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7 - The Ethical Status of an AI

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2023

By
James A. Foster  and
Donald C. Wunsch
Edited by
Xiuzhen Huang ,
Jason H. Moore  and
Yu Zhang
Xiuzhen Huang
Affiliation:
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
Jason H. Moore
Affiliation:
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
Yu Zhang
Affiliation:
Trinity University, Texas
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Summary

This chapter explores the ethical status of a presumed artificially intelligent machine (AI) and the grounds for such status from the perspective of ethical philosophy. The chapter explicitly repudiates anthropocentric claims for an AI or assumptions about its capabilities or motivations for its existence or actions. It also avoids any speculation about whether or when AI capabilities may come about. Instead, it provides a framework for building the vocabulary and concepts for analysis of important ethical issues for AI from first principles. The philosophical foundations of ethics considered here are nihilism, divine command, consequentialism, deontology, and virtues ethics.

Keywords

ethicsartificial intelligencephilosophy
Type
Chapter
Information
Integrative Bioinformatics for Biomedical Big Data
A No-Boundary Thinking Approach
 , pp. 135 - 146
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

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Kant, I., 1785. Die Grundlage zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Königsberg (trans. 1996. The Metaphysics of Morals, Gregor MJ. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
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Singer, P, 2009. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals. New York: Harper.Google Scholar

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