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Technological Answerability and the Severance Problem: Staying Connected by Demanding Answers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic technologies have become nearly ubiquitous. In some ways, the developments have likely helped us, but in other ways sophisticated technologies set back our interests. Among the latter sort is what has been dubbed the ‘severance problem’—the idea that technolo...

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Published in:Science & Engineering Ethics Vol. 27; no. 5; pp. 1 - 39
Main Author: Tigard, Daniel W.
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Oct2021
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Oct2021
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        10.1007/s11948-021-00334-5
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        au: Tigard, Daniel W.
        affil: Institute for History and Ethics of Medicine, Technical University of Munich, Ismaninger Str. 22, 81675, Munich, Germany
      sug:
      keyword:
        Artificial intelligence
        Explainable AI
        Human–computer interaction
        Machine ethics
        Moral agency
        Moral responsibility
        Robot ethics
        Technological answerability
      ab: Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic technologies have become nearly ubiquitous. In some ways, the developments have likely helped us, but in other ways sophisticated technologies set back our interests. Among the latter sort is what has been dubbed the ‘severance problem’—the idea that technologies sever our connection to the world, a connection which is necessary for us to flourish and live meaningful lives. I grant that the severance problem is a threat we should mitigate and I ask: how can we stave it off? In particular, the fact that some technologies exhibit behavior that is unclear to us seems to constitute a kind of severance. Building upon contemporary work on moral responsibility, I argue for a mechanism I refer to as ‘technological answerability’, namely the capacity to recognize human demands for answers and to respond accordingly. By designing select devices—such as robotic assistants and personal AI programs—for increased answerability, we see at least one way of satisfying our demands for answers and thereby retaining our connection to a world increasingly occupied by technology.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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      custom: Science & Engineering Ethics is a copyright of Springer, 2021. All Rights Reserved.
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          year: 2021
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