Michael T. Stuart

National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, University of Tübingen

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About

Michael T. Stuart is a philosopher whose research sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, moral psychology, and the ethics of emerging technologies. His work investigates how people attribute moral responsibility, blame, and culpability to AI systems and robots — a pressing question as intelligent machines become increasingly embedded in everyday life. In his most-cited paper, "Guilty Artificial Minds: Folk Attributions of Mens Rea and Culpability to Artificially Intelligent Agents" (2021, 45 citations), Stuart challenges the traditional philosophical assumption that robots cannot be meaningfully blamed, revealing through empirical research that ordinary people do in fact ascribe moral responsibility to AI agents in certain harmful situations. This work raises important concerns about whether such attributions might inadvertently shield human actors — owners, designers, and users — from accountability. His follow-up study, "Playing the Blame Game with Robots" (2021, 27 citations), digs deeper into the psychological mechanisms driving these attributions. Together, these contributions have made Stuart an important voice in debates about AI ethics and moral responsibility, offering empirically grounded insights that bridge philosophy of mind, legal theory, and public understanding of intelligent systems.