Machine Ethics (eBook)

This book offers the first systematic guide to machine ethics, bridging between computer science, social sciences and philosophy. Based on a dialogue between an AI scientist and a novelist philosopher, the book discusses important findings on which moral values machines can be taught and how. In turn, it investigates what kind of artificial intelligence (AI) people do actually want.

What are the main consequences of the integration of AI in people's every-day life? In order to co-exist and collaborate with humans, machines need morality, but which moral values should we teach them? Moreover, how can we implement benevolent AI? These are just some of the questions carefully examined in the book, which offers a comprehensive account of ethical issues concerning AI, on the one hand, and a timely snapshot of the power and potential benefits of this technology on the other. Starting with an introduction to common-sense ethical principles, the book then guides the reader, helping them develop and understand more complex ethical concerns and placing them in a larger, technological context. The book makes these topics accessible to a non-expert audience, while also offering alternative reading pathways to inspire more specialized readers.

Luís Moniz Pereira is Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), Portugal. He is a member of the NOVA Laboratory for Computer Science and Informatics (NOVA-LINCS) of the Informatics Department. In 2001 he was elected Fellow of the European Association of Artificial Intelligence (EurAI). In 2006 he was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the Technische Universität Dresden. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees and Scientific Advisory Board of IMDEA, the Madrid Institute of Software Advanced Studies, since 2006. In 1984 he became the founding President of the Portuguese Association for Artificial Intelligence (APPIA). His research focuses on the representation of knowledge and reasoning, logic programming, cognitive sciences and evolutionary game theory. In 2019 he received the National Medal of Scientific Merit. More information, including other awards and his publications at: http://userweb.fct.unl.pt/-lmp/

António Lopes has a Licentiate's degree in Philosophy from the Portuguese Catholic University, and a Master in the same area from the Nova University of Lisbon. He is a philosophy teacher at the Anselmo de Andrade High School, where he is Coordinator of the Department of Social and Human Sciences. He published - with the Parsifal editions - the novels Como se Fosse a Última Vez (As If It Were the Last Time) and O Vale da Tentação (The Valley of Temptation). He is co-author of the book Animais que Ficaram para a História (Animals that Went Down in History), recently published by Editora Manuscrito, an imprint of the Grupo Presença. He collaborated in the book A Máquina Iluminada - Cognição e Computação (The Enlightened Machine - Cognition and Computation), authored by Luís Moniz Pereira, published by Fronteira do Caos Editores, 2016.