Moral Psychology and Artificial Agents (Part Two)

Abstract

Part 1 concluded by introducing the concept of the new ontological category – explaining how our cognitive machinery does not have natural and intuitive understanding of robots and AIs, unlike we have for animals, tools, and plants. Here the authors review findings in the moral psychology of robotics and transhumanism. They show that many peculiarities arise from the interaction of human cognition with robots, AIs, and human enhancement technologies. Robots are treated similarly, but not completely, like humans. Some such peculiarities are explained by mind perception mechanisms. On the other hand, it seems that transhumanistic technologies like brain implants and mind uploading are condemned, and the condemnation is motivated by our innate sexual disgust sensitivity mechanisms.