AI Ethics Guidelines: Time to Include Animals.
Artificial intelligence (AI) ethics guidelines make strong appeals for ensuring that AI benefits human beings without unjustifiably harming them. Yet these guidelines largely overlook AIs ethically relevant positive and negative impacts on sentient nonhuman animals. This paper argues that it is time...
| Published in: | Science & Engineering Ethics Vol. 32; no. 1; pp. 1 - 31 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Feb2026
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=191129956&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 191129956 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 13533452 GNI jtl: Science & Engineering Ethics issn: 13533452 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Feb2026 vid: 32 iid: 1 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 191129956 10.1007/s11948-025-00578-5 ppf: 1 ppct: 30 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.4MB tig: atl: AI Ethics Guidelines: Time to Include Animals. aug: au: Coghlan, Simon Parker, Christine Lederman, Reeva affil: https://ror.org/01ej9dk98 School of Computing and Information Systems, Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, The University of Melbourne, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia https://ror.org/01ej9dk98 Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne and Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia https://ror.org/01ej9dk98 School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia su: Animal rights Ethics Animal welfare Human-animal relationships Artificial intelligence & ethics sug: subj: Animal rights Ethics Animal welfare Human-animal relationships Artificial intelligence & ethics keyword: Artificial intelligence Ethics guidelines Moral value Nonhuman animals Philosophy and Religious Studies Philosophy Sentience ab: Artificial intelligence (AI) ethics guidelines make strong appeals for ensuring that AI benefits human beings without unjustifiably harming them. Yet these guidelines largely overlook AIs ethically relevant positive and negative impacts on sentient nonhuman animals. This paper argues that it is time to include sentient animals in AI ethics guidelines produced by governments, supranational and intergovernmental bodies, NGOs, academics, professional groups, for-profit corporations, and the like. AI ethics guidelines should explicitly and adequately include values and principles that protect and promote sentient animal interests. The case proceeds by considering five possible objections to recognising animals in these guidelines: 1) Animals and their interests are not significantly affected by AI; 2) Humans lack duties to protect or help animals; 3) Considering animals is overridden by more pressing duties to humans; 4) There is too much disagreement about how animals should be treated; 5) AI ethics guidelines are unhelpful or counterproductive. These objections, the paper argues, ultimately fail. A very important reason for being more inclusive of animals, it claims, is their ongoing moral and social invisibility. Paying more attention to sentient animals as morally significant interest-holders in the rapidly evolving AI ethics discourse would go one step towards redressing this problem of marginalisation. Finally, this paper makes broad suggestions for how animals might be appropriately incorporated in ethics guidelines. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Science & Engineering Ethics is a copyright of Springer, 2026. All Rights Reserved. item: Science & Engineering Ethics holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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