Sentience Institute sees artificial sentience as an important frontier for moral circle expansion, among other reasons, because such beings could be created in vast numbers in the future. We conducted a literature review in order to increase our understanding of relevant work to date and help stimulate the development of a thriving research field on this topic.
We are pleased to announce that the resulting paper, “The Moral Consideration of Artificial Entities: A Literature Review,” has been published in the journal Science and Engineering Ethics.
ABSTRACT
Ethicists, policy-makers, and the general public have questioned whether artificial entities such as robots warrant rights or other forms of moral consideration. There is little synthesis of the research on this topic so far. We identify 294 relevant research or discussion items in our literature review of this topic. There is widespread agreement among scholars that some artificial entities could warrant moral consideration in the future, if not also the present. The reasoning varies, such as concern for the effects on artificial entities and concern for the effects on human society. Beyond the conventional consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethicist ethical frameworks, some scholars encourage “information ethics” and “social-relational” approaches, though there are opportunities for more in-depth ethical research on the nuances of moral consideration of artificial entities. There is limited relevant empirical data collection, primarily in a few psychological studies on current moral and social attitudes of humans towards robots and other artificial entities. This suggests an important gap for psychological, sociological, economic, and organizational research on how artificial entities will be integrated into society and the factors that will determine how the interests of artificial entities are considered.
Read the open-access paper at Science and Engineering Ethics: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-021-00331-8