Machine Ethics [electronic resource] : From Machine Morals to the Machinery of Morality /

Chapter 1: Introduction and Synopsis -- Chapter 2: Artificial Intelligence, machine autonomy and emerging needs -- Chapter 3: Intelligence: from natural to artificial -- Chapter 4: Intelligence and autonomy in artificial agents -- Chapter 5: Cognition in context: an evolutionary logic impacting our individual and collective worlds -- Chapter 6: Being and appearance, or the omnipresence of algorithms -- Chapter 7: A question of epistemological nature: are there limits to AI enabled knowledge.

This book offers the first systematic guide to machine ethics, bridging between computer science, social sciences and philosophy. Based on a dialogue between an AI scientist and a novelist philosopher, the book discusses important findings on which moral values machines can be taught and how. In turn, it investigates what kind of artificial intelligence (AI) people do actually want. What are the main consequences of the integration of AI in people’s every-day life? In order to co-exist and collaborate with humans, machines need morality, but which moral values should we teach them? Moreover, how can we implement benevolent AI? These are just some of the questions carefully examined in the book, which offers a comprehensive account of ethical issues concerning AI, on the one hand, and a timely snapshot of the power and potential benefits of this technology on the other. Starting with an introduction to common-sense ethical principles, the book then guides the reader, helpingthem develop and understand more complex ethical concerns and placing them in a larger, technological context. The book makes these topics accessible to a non-expert audience, while also offering alternative reading pathways to inspire more specialized readers.