The Business of Ethics, Robotics, and Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

This chapter explores the rise of ethics as the discipline to address issues in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). But why single out the discipline of “ethics”? I show how ethics is not a homogeneous, or unitary, body of knowledge, and that we have to pay attention to narratives in ethics that reproduce class and sex biases. In this sense, I focus on the theme of corporate and academic interest in the ethics of robots and AI, which, as I argue, is motivated by a metaphysical project to redefine the human as equivalent to a machine (robot) and to algorithmic programs (AI). I argue that the rejection of humans as distinct from machines represents the failure of mainstream philosophy to assimilate perspectives of class and sex into ethics as a body of knowledge that is capable of solving human crises. Rather than see ethics as neutral, I show a connection between corporate interest in ethics of robots and AI on the one hand, and the redefinition of the human on the other. I propose we should question ethical paradigms and ensure that feminist and class analyses are integrated into contemporary narratives of ethics of robots and AI.