Overview

We are in the midst of a robot invasion, as devices of different configurations and capabilities slowly but surely take up increasingly important positions in everyday social reality-self-driving vehicles, recommendation algorithms, machine learning decision-making systems, and social robots of various forms and functions. Although considerable attention has already been devoted to the subject of robots and responsibility, the question concerning the social status of these artifacts has been largely overlooked. In this book, David Gunkel offers a provocative attempt to think about what has been previously regarded as unthinkable: whether and to what extent robots and other technological artifacts of our own making can and should have any claim to moral and legal standing. In his analysis, Gunkel invokes the philosophical distinction (developed by David Hume) between is and ought in order to evaluate and analyze the different arguments regarding the question of robot rights. In the course of his examination, Gunkel finds that none of the existing positions or proposals hold up under scrutiny. In response to this, he then offers an innovative alternative proposal that effectively flips the script on the is/ought problem by introducing another, altogether different way to conceptualize the social situation of robots and the opportunities and challenges they present to existing moral and legal systems.

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9781982622428

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Going beyond usual stereotypes of science fiction, this book is a deep reflection on how we want to shape our future, which place we want to assign to robots, and how we want to deal with them in our daily lives. -- Mady Delvaux-Stehres, Luxemburgish S&D Member of the European Parliament Gunkel's book dissects the question of whether robots should have rights from every angle, setting the stage for what may become the most important ethical debate of this century. -- Tony Prescott, Professor of Cognitive Robotics, University of Sheffield

"Going beyond usual stereotypes of science fiction, this book is a deep reflection on how we want to shape our future, which place we want to assign to robots, and how we want to deal with them in our daily lives. -- ""Mady Delvaux-Stehres, Luxemburgish S&D Member of the European Parliament"" Gunkel's book dissects the question of whether robots should have rights from every angle, setting the stage for what may become the most important ethical debate of this century. -- ""Tony Prescott, Professor of Cognitive Robotics, University of Sheffield"""

Author Information

David J. Gunkel is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Communication Technology at Northern Illinois University and the author of The Machine Question and Of Remixology, both published by the MIT Press. David Stifel trained at the Yale School of Drama and has worked for such noted film directors as Steven Spielberg and Danny Boyle.

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