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Notes
A more extended analysis of the law of agency as it might apply to artificial agents is found in Chopin and White (2012).
Elsewhere I have explored the varying conceptions of autonomy that are being used in this discourse; see M. Noorman and D.G. Johnson, “Negotiating Autonomy and Responsibility in Military Robots”, Ethics and Information Technology, forthcoming.
Google has succeeded in convincing several municipalities to allow Google’s so-called autonomous cars to operate in their areas but these cars are not unmanned.
Although the idea will not be taken up here, it is worth noting that the notion of an incomprehensible and uncontrollable technology needs to be unpacked for many current technologies are incomprehensible and uncontrollable to some but not to others.
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Acknowledgments
Research for this paper was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1058457. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This article has been greatly improved from comments on an earlier version from Norm Bowie and Keith Miller.
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Johnson, D.G. Technology with No Human Responsibility?. J Bus Ethics 127, 707–715 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2180-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2180-1