Digital Minds II: Ethical Issues

What would it take for AI systems to have moral standing, and what kind of obligations might fall on us as a result? This paper summarizes contemporary debates related to these questions. Topics include: how different theories of the basis of moral standing might apply to AI systems; what kind of moral importance our treatment of AI systems might have if they have any moral standing at all; possible tensions between respecting the moral status of future AI systems and the goal of achieving AI alignment; economic and political rights; the significance of empirical and moral uncertainty; and what practical measures, if any, should be implemented now to address the possibility that AI systems exhibiting morally significant mental states might appear within the not-too-distant future – assuming they are not already here.