Ethical Issues in Our Relationship with Artificial Entities

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the ethics of human relationships with artificial entities—bots, robots, and other computational systems created to interact with humans as if they were sentient and autonomous individuals. Sentience—the ability to have emotions, to feel pain and want to avoid it—is a core concept here. All currently existing artificial entities are nonsentient, but their interactions and design evoke the impression of a conscious entity with personality and emotion. This impression of consciousness is inherently deceptive. Some artificial entities are beneficial, while others are manipulative and harmful. The chapter then addresses ethical issues in the design and deployment of artificial entities, considering the ethical responsibilities of researchers and designers.