by Fabio Tollon
What should we do in cases where increasingly sophisticated and potentially autonomous AI-systems perform ‘actions’ that, under normal circumstances, would warrant the ascription of moral responsibility? That is, who (or what) is responsible when, for example, a self-driving car harms a pedestrian? An intuitive answer might be: Well, it is of course the company who created the car who should be held responsible! They built the car, trained the AI-system, and deployed it.
However, this answer is a bit hasty. The worry here is that the autonomous nature of certain AI-systems means that it would be unfair, unjust, or inappropriate to hold the company or any individual engineers or software developers responsible. To go back to the example of the self-driving car; it may be the case that due to the car’s ability to act outside of the control of the original developers, their responsibility would be ‘cancelled’, and it would be inappropriate to hold them responsible.
Moreover, it may be the case that the machine in question is not sufficiently autonomous or agential for it to be responsible itself. This is certainly true of all currently existing AI-systems and may be true far into the future. Thus, we have the emergence of a ‘responsibility gap’: Neither the machine nor the humans who developed it are responsible for some outcome.
In this article I want to offer some brief reflections on the ‘problem’ of responsibility gaps. Read more »
When we speak about identity, we usually have in mind the various social categories we occupy—gender categories, nationality, or racial categories being the most prominent. But none of these general characteristics really define us as individuals. Each of us falls into various categories but so does everyone else. To say I’m a straight white male puts me in a bucket with millions of others. To add my nationality and profession only narrows it down a bit.
Does philosophy have anything to tell us about problems we face in everyday life? Many ancient philosophers thought so. To them, philosophy was not merely an academic discipline but a way of life that provided distinctive reasons and motivations for living well. Some contemporary philosophers have been inspired by these ancient sources giving new life to this question about philosophy’s practical import.
Today “skepticism” has two related meanings. In ordinary language it is a behavioral disposition to withhold assent to a claim until sufficient evidence is available to judge the claim true or false. This skeptical disposition is central to scientific inquiry, although financial incentives and the attractions of prestige render it inconsistently realized. In a world increasingly afflicted with misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies we could use more skepticism of this sort.
If philosophy is not only an academic, theoretical discipline but a way of life, as many Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers thought, one way of evaluating a philosophy is in terms of the kind of life it entails.
One of the more remarkable developments in popular philosophy over the past 20 years is the rebirth of stoicism. Stoicism was an ancient Greek and Roman philosophy founded around 300 BCE by the merchant Zeno of Citium, in what is now Cyprus. Although, contemporary professional philosophers occasionally discuss Stoicism as a form of virtue ethics, most consider it to be a minor philosophical movement in the history of philosophy with limited influence. Yet it has captured the attention of the non-professional philosophical world with many websites and online communities devoted to its practice. 
For many of the ancient philosophers that we still read today, philosophy was not only an intellectual pursuit but a way of life, a rigorous pursuit of wisdom that can guide us through the difficult decisions and battle for self-control that characterize a human life. That view of philosophy as a practical guide faded throughout much of modern history as the idea of a “way of life” was deemed a matter of personal preference and philosophical ethics became a study of how we justify right action. But with the recognition that philosophy might speak to broader concerns than those that get a hearing in academia, this idea of philosophy as a way of life 
Among the ideas in the history of philosophy most worthy of an eye-roll is Aristotle’s claim that the study of metaphysics is the highest form of eudaimonia (variously translated as “happiness” or “flourishing”) of which human beings are capable. The metaphysician is allegedly happier than even the philosopher who makes a well-lived life the sole focus of inquiry. “Arrogant,” self-serving,” and “implausible” come immediately to mind as a first response to the argument. It’s not at all obvious that philosophers, let alone metaphysicians, are happier than anyone else nor is it obvious why the investigation of metaphysical matters is more joyful or conducive to flourishing than the investigation of other subjects.
