Finite transition systems: semantics of communicating systems
Finite transition systems: semantics of communicating systems
Randomized algorithms
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Artificial Morality: Virtuous Robots for Virtual Games
Artificial Morality: Virtuous Robots for Virtual Games
Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization and Machine Learning
Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization and Machine Learning
Machine Learning
Information ethics: On the philosophical foundation ofcomputer ethics
Ethics and Information Technology
Artificial evil and the foundation of computer ethics
Ethics and Information Technology
On the intrinsic value of informationobjects and the infosphere
Ethics and Information Technology
Is it an Agent, or Just a Program?: A Taxonomy for Autonomous Agents
ECAI '96 Proceedings of the Workshop on Intelligent Agents III, Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
The tragedy of the digital commons
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Consciousness, Agents and the Knowledge Game
Minds and Machines
Information ethics, its nature and scope
ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society
Ethics and Artificial life: From Modeling to Moral Agents
Ethics and Information Technology
Artificial Morality: Top-down, Bottom-up, and Hybrid Approaches
Ethics and Information Technology
The Ontological Interpretation of Informational Privacy
Ethics and Information Technology
Delegating and Distributing Morality: Can We Inscribe Privacy Protection in a Machine?
Ethics and Information Technology
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Discourses on information ethics: The claim to universality
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Ethics and Information Technology
Floridi's ontological theory of informational privacy: Some implications and challenges
Ethics and Information Technology
The ethics of designing artificial agents
Ethics and Information Technology
On Floridi's metaphysical foundation of information ecology
Ethics and Information Technology
How I Learned to Love the Bomb: Defcon and the Ethics of Computer Games
ICEC '08 Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Entertainment Computing
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Proceedings of the 2008 conference on Current Issues in Computing and Philosophy
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Information Systems Frontiers
RoboWarfare: can robots be more ethical than humans on the battlefield?
Ethics and Information Technology
Robot rights? Towards a social-relational justification of moral consideration
Ethics and Information Technology
The curious case of human-robot morality
Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Human-robot interaction
Ethics and Information Technology
Developing artificial agents worthy of trust: "Would you buy a used car from this artificial agent?"
Ethics and Information Technology
Can we Develop Artificial Agents Capable of Making Good Moral Decisions?
Minds and Machines
Ethics and Information Technology
Ethics and Information Technology
ICAISC'12 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing - Volume Part II
Cracking down on autonomy: three challenges to design in IT Law
Ethics and Information Technology
Three roads to complexity, AI and the law of robots: on crimes, contracts, and torts
AICOL'11 Proceedings of the 25th IVR Congress conference on AI Approaches to the Complexity of Legal Systems: models and ethical challenges for legal systems, legal language and legal ontologies, argumentation and software agents
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ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society - Selected Papers from The Ninth International Conference on Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry
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Artificial agents (AAs), particularly but not only those in Cyberspace, extend the class of entities that can be involved in moral situations. For they can be conceived of as moral patients (as entities that can be acted upon for good or evil) and also as moral agents (as entities that can perform actions, again for good or evil). In this paper, we clarify the concept of agent and go on to separate the concerns of morality and responsibility of agents (most interestingly for us, of AAs). We conclude that there is substantial and important scope, particularly in Computer Ethics, for the concept of moral agent not necessarily exhibiting free will, mental states or responsibility. This complements the more traditional approach, common at least since Montaigne and Descartes, which considers whether or not (artificial) agents have mental states, feelings, emotions and so on. By focussing directly on ‘mind-less morality’ we are able to avoid that question and also many of the concerns of Artificial Intelligence. A vital component in our approach is the ‘Method of Abstraction’ for analysing the level of abstraction (LoA) at which an agent is considered to act. The LoA is determined by the way in which one chooses to describe, analyse and discuss a system and its context. The ‘Method of Abstraction’ is explained in terms of an ‘interface’ or set of features or observables at a given ‘LoA’. Agenthood, and in particular moral agenthood, depends on a LoA. Our guidelines for agenthood are: interactivity (response to stimulus by change of state), autonomy (ability to change state without stimulus) and adaptability (ability to change the ‘transition rules’ by which state is changed) at a given LoA. Morality may be thought of as a ‘threshold’ defined on the observables in the interface determining the LoA under consideration. An agent is morally good if its actions all respect that threshold; and it is morally evil if some action violates it. That view is particularly informative when the agent constitutes a software or digital system, and the observables are numerical. Finally we review the consequences for Computer Ethics of our approach. In conclusion, this approach facilitates the discussion of the morality of agents not only in Cyberspace but also in the biosphere, where animals can be considered moral agents without their having to display free will, emotions or mental states, and in social contexts, where systems like organizations can play the role of moral agents. The primary ‘cost’ of this facility is the extension of the class of agents and moral agents to embrace AAs.