Humans and Robots: Ethics, Agency, and Anthropomorphism

by Sven Nyholm

Can robots perform actions, make decisions, collaborate with humans, be our friends, perhaps fall in love, or potentially harm us? Even before these things truly happen, ethical and philosophical questions already arise. The reason is that we humans have a tendency to spontaneously attribute minds and “agency” to anything even remotely humanlike. Moreover, some people already say that robots should be our companions and have rights. Others say that robots should be slaves. This book tackles emerging ethical issues about human beings, robots, and agency head on. It explores the ethics of creating robots that are, or appear to be, decision-making agents. From military robots to self-driving cars to care robots or even sex robots equipped with artificial how should we interpret the apparent agency of such robots? This book argues that we need to explore how human beings can best coordinate and collaborate with robots in responsible ways. It investigates ethically important differences between human agency and robot agency to work towards an ethics of responsible human-robot interaction.

Genres: Technology, Philosophy, Nonfiction

237 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 9, 2020

Reviews

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I think that the default ethically preferred choice should be to seek ways of adapting robots and AI to humans. But we should also investigate whether there are any cases in which it might be beneficial for us to do things the other way around. If there are—and the given ways of adapting humans to robots and AI are domain-specific, largely reversible, and not too invasive—the ethically better choice might be to adapt human behavior to robot behavior in whatever ways might be beneficial to us." (80)

How should humans and robots live together? Given that robots and AI are already pervasive in today's society and are only likely to become more prominent, this is one of the major moral questions of our time. Sven Nyholm's book, Humans and Robots, is an excellent introduction to the ethics of human-robot interaction. I think that the above quotation sums up Nyholm's main argument very well—it is a major thread running through the book, which covers a range of related topics, such as whether robots can be friends, whether they can be good, whether we can love them, whether they might have minds, and whether they ought to have rights. In general, Nyholm is skeptical about attributing too much in the way of minds and human-like properties to robots that would make them proper subjects of human friendship and love and so on (a skepticism that I share). Nyholm engages with a bunch of work done in these areas in a critical but always charitable and even-handed way. As much as I agree with his approach and with some of his conclusions, what might be more important than any tentative answers is the way that Nyholm sets up the important ethical questions that should be asked with respect to human-robots interaction for the present and foreseeable future (rather than any fantastic imaginaries).

[Olya · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best academic book on the subject so far. Engaging regardless academic acumen and depth, full of examples and case studies, up-to-date and relevant. All of this makes the book interesting to anyone curious about human-robots or AI relations and could even be used in class as part of the curriculum. Highly recommend!

[Andrea Ferraz estrada · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book raises some key questions with regards to the complexity of the interactions of humans and robots, not in some dystopian future, but today. An excellent read.

[Morgan Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book presents important ideas and considerations with questions of "Should we..." and "Could we..." when it comes to technology and AI. Very interesting conversations about human tendencies to project human characteristics on non-humans, what kind of relationships we can have with non-humans, and if AI gets to the point of self-awareness and self-determination, should we treat them with dignity? Very thought provoking and a great pairing with modern conversations and media forms about robots and AI.

[Francesca · Rating 4 out of 5]

good introduction to the essential premise-conclusion arguments surrounding AI ethics