How AI Systems Can Be Blameworthy

Philosophia (4):1-24 (2024)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

AI systems, like self-driving cars, healthcare robots, or Autonomous Weapon Systems, already play an increasingly important role in our lives and will do so to an even greater extent in the near future. This raises a fundamental philosophical question: who is morally responsible when such systems cause unjustified harm? In the paper, we argue for the admittedly surprising claim that some of these systems can themselves be morally responsible for their conduct in an important and everyday sense of the term—the attributability sense. More specifically, relying on work by Nomy Arpaly and Timothy Schroeder (In Praise of Desire, OUP 2014), we propose that the behavior of these systems can manifest their ‘quality of will’ and thus be regarded as something they can be blameworthy for. We develop this position in detail, justify some of its crucial presuppositions, and defend it against potential objections.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Can we Bridge AI’s responsibility gap at Will?Maximilian Kiener - 2022 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 25 (4):575-593.
The Point of Blaming AI Systems.Hannah Altehenger & Leonhard Menges - 2024 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 27 (2).
Is Explainable AI Responsible AI?Isaac Taylor - forthcoming - AI and Society.
Mind the Gap: Autonomous Systems, the Responsibility Gap, and Moral Entanglement.Trystan S. Goetze - 2022 - Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’22).
Machine Learning for Autonomous Systems: Navigating Safety, Ethics, and Regulation In.Madhu Aswathy - 2025 - International Journal of Advanced Research in Education and Technology 12 (2):458-463.
Folk Understanding of Artificial Moral Agency.Hyungrae Noh - 2025 - In Johanna Seibt, Peter Fazekas & Oliver Santiago Quick, Social Robots with AI: Prospects, Risks, and Responsible Methods. Amsterdam: IOS Press. pp. 210-218.

Analytics

Added to PP
2024-10-01

Downloads
319 (#91,449)

6 months
319 (#7,076)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Hannah Altehenger
Universität Konstanz
Leonhard Menges
University of Salzburg
Peter Schulte
University of Zürich

Citations of this work

What responsibility gaps are and what they should be.Herman Veluwenkamp - 2025 - Ethics and Information Technology 27 (1):1-13.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Minds, brains, and programs.John Searle - 1980 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3):417-57.
Freedom and Resentment.Peter Strawson - 1962 - Proceedings of the British Academy 48:187-211.
Moral dimensions: permissibility, meaning, blame.Thomas Scanlon - 2008 - Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

View all 58 references / Add more references