Artificial intelligence

Abstract

In this final volume I expand on the issue of what difference might it make if and when AI and robotics (R) become more widespread. I start with simple issues based on a tool perspective but explore increasingly speculative issues. I range across the work of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) robotics initiative and the global Future of Life Institute (FLI) ‘Asimolar’ principles and draw on Boström, Turing, Searle and Dunbar. I ask what features might an AI (R) be coded to possess, under what situations might we start to or want to treat AI (R) as friends and, perhaps, why might we need any future AI to both care about us and want to be our friend? There are important ontological issues here in terms of the entity status of technology that may affect how we treat any future entity and what its relational situation and social consequences are.