Proto-Moral Machines and Value-Sensitive Design of Socio-Technical Systems

When robots function as members of a group, ethical worries emerge. When a robot’s role and tasks in the group are simple, the worries can be met through a Value-Sensitive Design (VSD) process. In more complex and variable contexts, with robots with higher degree of autonomy and flexibility in their behaviour, the problem of making robots making morally acceptable decisions emerges. There are, however, social contexts in between simple functions and ones that require artificial morality. I have previously argued that proto-moral capacities (simpler than what are needed for morality and evolutionarily preceding true morality) can make robots’ behaviour more in line with our ethical considerations. The function of these capacities is best understood as enabling participation in certain forms of social interaction. In this paper, I will argue that a way to minimize ethical risks when autonomous robots are deployed in complex social contexts is to combine the proto-morality approach and VSD, with a focus on the forms of social interaction within the group’s functioning. (This paper was presented at Workshop 6, “Robots in Groups”, organized by Raul Hakli and Pekka Mäkelä, at the Robophilosophy 2024 Conference.)