'On the moral status of social robots: considering the consciousness criterion' by Kestutis Mosakas in (2020) 36 AI and Society 429–443 comments
While philosophers have been debating for decades on whether different entities—including severely disabled human beings, embryos, animals, objects of nature, and even works of art—can legitimately be considered as having moral status, this question has gained a new dimension in the wake of artificial intelligence (AI). One of the more imminent concerns in the context of AI is that of the moral rights and status of social robots, such as robotic caregivers and artificial companions, that are built to interact with human beings. In recent years, some approaches to moral consideration have been proposed that would include social robots as proper objects of moral concern, even though it seems unlikely that these machines are conscious beings. In the present paper, I argue against these approaches by advocating the “consciousness criterion,” which proposes phenomenal consciousness as a necessary condition for accrediting moral status. First, I explain why it is generally supposed that consciousness underlies the morally relevant properties (such as sentience) and then, I respond to some of the common objections against this view. Then, I examine three inclusive alternative approaches to moral consideration that could accommodate social robots and point out why they are ultimately implausible. Finally, I conclude that social robots should not be regarded as proper objects of moral concern unless and until they become capable of having conscious experience. While that does not entail that they should be excluded from our moral reasoning and decision-making altogether, it does suggest that humans do not owe direct moral duties to them.
Mosakas argues
In recent years, the question of moral status has gained a new dimension. While the twentieth century has been marked with a considerable rise in interest regarding the questions on the moral status of animals, environment, and certain marginalized groups of people (consider the movements against sexism, racism, and homophobia), increasing attention is now devoted to the issue of robot rights (Gunkel 2014a, 2018a; Gordon 2018a; Miller 2015). This question has become one of the utmost importance, because of the expected imminent developments in robotics, as well as the generally optimistic predictions from experts on the future of AI (Grace et al. 2017; Müller and Bostrom 2014).
This paper considers the moral status of the so-called social robots (SRs hereafter)—machines that are autonomous, physically embodied, and able to interact with human beings on a social level (Darling 2016, 215). While certain types of SRs already exist today, their development, use, and capabilities should expand considerably in the near future. Thus far, however, there seems to be little agreement on the moral status of these entities. Drawing on some of the traditional literature, one may be tempted to infer that SRs do not qualify for moral status, because they are not conscious. However, some machine ethicists have proposed that consciousness may not be a necessary criterion for moral status after all. Indeed, one could argue that one of the key emerging characteristics of this on-going debate involves the move away from what may be labelled as “the consciousness criterion” (i.e., the capacity for phenomenal experience) for moral status and towards more inclusive approaches. Nevertheless, it is not obvious that one can be done with the consciousness criterion so easily.
This paper has two principal goals. The first one is to outline the consciousness criterion and respond to some of the important objections lodged against it. The second is to consider some of the alternatives proposed in the context of the debate on the moral status of SRs and to provide a critical commentary on them. Ultimately, it is concluded that the substantial theoretical benefits provided by the consciousness criterion are unlikely to be surpassed by the competing accounts of moral status, in spite of the epistemological, metaphysical, and conceptual problems that pervade the notion of consciousness.
