Leading minds in the popular and scholarly discourse on artificial intelligence (AI) ethics tend to issue strong claims with unshakeable confidence—AI is just a tool, AI does not “think” or “learn,” humans can just stop anthropomorphizing AI, etc. Oddly, otherwise brilliant scholars and commentators seemingly hit an intellectual wall when it comes to contemplating the ontological and moral status of this rapidly advancing technology. The staleness of this discursive state of affairs is all the more surprising given the commitment of (...) many AI experts to diversity, social justice, and environmental sustainability, values that should counsel against expressions of certainty and welcome rather than reject a plurality of perspectives. Thus far, few attempts have been made to formally expose these totalizing tendencies and ideological contradictions with an eye towards laying the groundwork for more inclusive conversations about the ethical implications of AI. (shrink)

Sing C. Chew’s latest book, Ecology, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality: Life in the Digital Dark Ages, complements his trio of monographs on the history of environmental degradation and social change. His timing could not be better, as books examining the intersection of environmental crisis and emerging technologies have quickly become a cottage industry. This burgeoning literature generally consists of two camps – techno-optimists (such as those contributing to Fei Fang et al.’s (2019) edited volume Artificial Intelligence and Conservation) and (...) techno-pessimists (exemplified by Peter Dauvergne’s (2020) AI in the Wild). Chew’s title, despite its reference to the Dark Ages, fits comfortably in the middle of these opposing perspectives. (shrink)

Jay Odenbaugh offers a wildlife management solution to the dilemma involving competing owl species. However, the topic of rights is curiously absent from this proposal. In this response, I argue that killing owls is morally and legally wrong whether approached from the perspective of animal rights or rights of nature. I contend that no matter which approach is taken, the conflicting state of various owl populations does not necessitate a duty to kill some portion of them. Instead, we should translate (...) our grief over our moral failings into political action in the hopes of securing a better future for all. (shrink)

This Commentary offers a critique of an eco-relational approach in robot ethics, highlighting the importance of articulating an ecologically-sensitive ethical orientation that incorporates the entire more-than-human world, including technological entities like forms of artificial intelligence. While the eco-relational approach enhances our understanding of the complex way in which morally significant properties operate on a phenomenological level, it is not without its flaws. In particular, this perspective focuses on ethical concepts when it needs to be rooted in ethical systems, misrepresents the (...) extant literature on relational approaches to moral status, and is insufficiently ecological in a way that would bring machines into the moral universe by way of their location in and importance to the larger environment. At a time when the legal status of robots is being decided before moral questions are settled, it remains important to get the contours of relevant debates right so that the robot ethics discourse brings us closer to developing practical solutions for ethical dilemmas emerging in our increasingly technological age. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing rapidly in an era in which the urgent need to address climate change is being confronted by anti-regulatory headwinds. These opposing forces complicate the pursuit of Sustainable AI, an ambitious goal that requires motivating private actors to reduce their AI-driven environmental impacts at the same time that the environmental consequences of AI remain highly uncertain. In this essay, I present a productive way to overcome this conundrum. Acknowledging the real issues that stand in the way (...) of companies disclosing environmental performance and drawing practical insights from scholarship on voluntary environmental governance, I propose a Sustainable AI that shuns wishful thinking in favor of a healthy dose of pragmatism. (shrink)

In this reply, I respond to Joshua C. Gellers’ commentary on my article “Not Relational Enough? Towards an Eco-Relational Approach in Robot Ethics” (Puzio, 2024a), in which I present a deeply relational, “eco-relational approach”. This approach asserts that it is necessary to consider the relationality with non-human entities such as animals and technology on a deeper level than has been done in robot ethics so far. This disrupts traditional ethical concepts. In his commentary “Not Ecological Enough: A Commentary (...) on an Eco-Relational Approach in Robot Ethics” (2024), Gellers raises criticisms of my method and the consequences of the eco-relational approach. In this reply, I address these criticisms and focus especially on the ecological responsibility of the eco-relational approach. (shrink)