Developing a Qualification System for Robot Moral Agency
Abstract
Establishing when, how, and why robots should be considered moral agents is key for advancing human-robot interaction (HRI). For instance, whether a robot is considered a moral agent has significant implications for how researchers, designers, and users can, should, and do make sense of robots and whether their agency in turn triggers social and moral cognitive and behavioral processes in humans. Robotic moral agency also has significant implications for how people should and do hold robots morally responsible, ascribe blame to them, develop trust in their actions, and determine when these robots wield moral influence. Measuring or quantifying moral agency is thus of critical importance for human-robot interaction research. Although there have been some recent attempts to develop scales that might achieve this goal, these approaches do not align with the philosophical literature on machine moral agency, and moreover, mistake agency (which we argue to be an ontological state of being) for a psychological construct.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 22, 2024
- Source ID
- FA95502310036
Entities
People
- Elizabeth Phillips
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- George Mason University
- United States Air Force