Primary recognition, morality and AI

Abstract

AbstractThis paper aims to show that the experience of ‘primary recognition’ (O’Hara in Moral certainty and the foundations of morality, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2018) can be extended to human AI interactions. That is, I argue that human beings can (and do) experience non-rational, reflex moral responses to AI and social robots that fit O’Hara’s description of primary recognition. I give two plausible examples, one involving a military mine-sweeping robot and the other, a toy dinosaur called a ‘Pleo’. These experiences of primary recognition do not, however, settle the question of whether any particular AI can be considered a true moral patient or a ‘person’.