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A Preliminary Study on the Moral Status of AI Robots

  • PHILOSOPHY·THOUGHT·CULTURE
  • 2021, (37), pp.22~50
  • DOI : 10.33639/ptc.2021..37.002
  • Publisher : Research Institute for East-West Thought
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : October 13, 2021
  • Accepted : November 24, 2021
  • Published : November 30, 2021

Kim, Sang Deuk 1

1전북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper is a preliminary consideration of the question of the moral status of AI robots, which aims to ethically criticize the three positions on this without giving a direct answer. To this end, I will first clarify where AI robots are located on the classification of robot ethics and the ethical topography of moral status. This analysis will reveal that the question “Can AI robots be moral agents?” is a key question about their moral status. There are three approaches regarding this question: a hermeneutic approach, an ontological approach, and a relational approach. These approaches imply important truths about the standard of moral status that can be applied to new artificial agents. In other words, these approaches fundamentally deny the moral status of an artificial agent, but for new AI robots with considerable autonomy, we must explore the moral status question with an open mind that they can be a member of the moral community. Because morality can no longer be exclusive to human beings. In particular, we obtain the truth that, under the ontological approach, intrinsic attributes of the object, and under the relational approach, verifiable phenomenal elements, not metaphysical elements, should be at the heart of moral status. It is a task for me to philosophically develop a new approach that meets this requirement.

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