•  6
    Regulation or Responsibility? Autonomy, Moral Imagination, and Engineering
    Science, Technology, and Human Values 31 (3): 237-260. 2006.
    A prima facie analysis suggests that there are essentially two, mutually exclusive, ways in which risk arising from engineering design can be managed: by imposing external constraints on engineers or by engendering their feelings of responsibility and respect their autonomy. The author discusses the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. However, he then shows that this opposition is a false one and that there is no simple relation between regulation and autonomy. Furthermore, the auth…Read more
  •  43
    A humanoid robot named ‘Sophia’ has sparked controversy since it has been given citizenship and has done media performances all over the world. The company that made the robot, Hanson Robotics, has touted Sophia as the future of artificial intelligence. Robot scientists and philosophers have been more pessimistic about its capabilities, describing Sophia as a sophisticated puppet or chatbot. Looking behind the rhetoric about Sophia’s citizenship and intelligence and going beyond recent discussio…Read more
  •  140
    AI Ethics
    The MIT Press. 2020.
    Artificial intelligence powers Google’s search engine, enables Facebook to target advertising, and allows Alexa and Siri to do their jobs. AI is also behind self-driving cars, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons that can kill without human intervention. These and other AI applications raise complex ethical issues that are the subject of ongoing debate. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an accessible synthesis of these issues. Written by a philosopher of techn…Read more
  •  81
    Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
    Oxford University Press. 2019.
    Addressing the technological opportunities and challenges of the 21st century, Introduction to Philosophy of Technology offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive overview of philosophy of technology available. It covers several of the classic theories and approaches, but also moves beyond them to explore a broader range of theories and a number of new dynamics in the field, including responding to new technological developments. Esteemed scholar Mark Coeckelbergh emphasizes how new technologi…Read more
  •  47
    Postphenomenology and posthermeneutics as initiated by Ihde have made important contributions to conceptualizing understanding human–technology relations. However, their focus on individual perception, artifacts, and static embodiment has its limitations when it comes to understanding the embodied use of technology as involving bodily movement, social, and taking place within, and configuring, a temporal horizon. To account for these dimensions of experience, action, and existence with technolog…Read more
  •  172
    This paper discusses the problem of responsibility attribution raised by the use of artificial intelligence technologies. It is assumed that only humans can be responsible agents; yet this alone already raises many issues, which are discussed starting from two Aristotelian conditions for responsibility. Next to the well-known problem of many hands, the issue of “many things” is identified and the temporal dimension is emphasized when it comes to the control condition. Special attention is given …Read more
  •  27
    Wittgenstein and Philosophy of Technology
    with Michael Funk and Stefan Koller
    Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 22 (3): 287-295. 2018.
  • Envisioning Robots in Society – Power, Politics, and Public Space (edited book)
    with M. Loh, J. Funk, M. Seibt, and J. Nørskov
    . 2018.
  •  16
    This article has already been published in Techné : Research in Philosophy and Technology, 19:3, pp. 358–380.: This article explores the relevance of Georg Simmel's phenomenology of money and interpretation of modernity for understanding and evaluating contemporary financial information and communication technologies. It reads Simmel as a philosopher of technology and phenomenologist whose view of money as a medium, a “pure” tool, and a social institution can - Sociologie – Nouvel article
  •  53
    This paper tries to understand the phenomenon that humans are able to empathize with robots and the intuition that there might be something wrong with “abusing” robots by discussing the question regarding the moral standing of robots. After a review of some relevant work in empirical psychology and a discussion of the ethics of empathizing with robots, a philosophical argument concerning the moral standing of robots is made that questions distant and uncritical moral reasoning about entities’ pr…Read more
  •  75
    From computer ethics to responsible research and innovation in ICT
    with Bernd Carsten Stahl, Grace Eden, and Marina Jirotka
    Information and Management 51 (6): 810-818. 2014.
    The discourse concerning computer ethics qualifies as a reference discourse for ethics-related IS research. Theories, topics and approaches of computer ethics are reflected in IS. The paper argues that there is currently a broader development in the area of research governance, which is referred to as 'responsible research and innovation'. RRI applied to information and communication technology addresses some of the limitations of computer ethics and points toward a broader approach to the gover…Read more
  •  1
    Hacking Technological Practices and the Vulnerability of the Modern Hero
    Foundations of Science 22 (2): 357-362. 2017.
    This reply to Gunkel and Zwart further reflects on, and responds to, the following main points: the Heideggerian character of my view and the potential link to Kafka, the suggestion that we should become hackers, the interpretation of my approach in terms of the Hegelian Master–Slave dialectic, the lack of an empirical dimension, and the claim that I think that modern heroism entails overcoming vulnerability. I acknowledge Heideggerian influence, reflect on what it could mean to think about livi…Read more
  •  9
    From killer machines to doctrines and swarms
    Philosophy and Technology 24 (3): 269-278. 2011.
    Ethical reflections on military robotics can be enriched by a better understanding of the nature and role of these technologies and by putting robotics into context in various ways. Discussing a range of ethical questions, this paper challenges the prevalent assumptions that military robotics is about military technology as a mere means to an end, about single killer machines, and about “military” developments. It recommends that ethics of robotics attend to how military technology changes our a…Read more
  •  44
    Are Emotional Robots Deceptive?
    IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing 3 (4): 388-393. 2012.
    A common objection to the use and development of "emotional" robots is that they are deceptive. This intuitive response assumes 1) that these robots intend to deceive, 2) that their emotions are not real, and 3) that they pretend to be a kind of entity they are not. We use these criteria to judge if an entity is deceptive in emotional communication. They can also be regarded as "ideal emotional communication" conditions that saliently operate as presuppositions in our communications with other e…Read more
  •  7
    Vulnerability and imagination in the Snorre a gas blowout and recovery
    with Ger Wackers
    World Oil 229 (1): 33-41. 2008.
    The safety-critical work in the field of business performance optimization has created the conditions that led to a near-disastrous subsea rupture in 2004 during a slot recovery operation. The successful recovery depended on the imaginative capabilities of the platform crew in trying to decide the courses of action. Statoil lost control of a well on the Snorre A TLP on the Norwegian Continental Shelf but the platform did not ignite. Followed by the safety procedures, oil production was shut down…Read more
  • Vulnerability to Natural Hazards
    In Paolo Gardoni, Colleen Murphy & Arden Rowell (eds.), Risk Analysis of Natural Hazards, Springer. pp. 27-41. 2016.
    Risk analysis and risk management are ways for humans to cope with natural disaster risk. This chapter connects discussions about risk with reflections on nature, technology, vulnerability, and modernity. In particular, it raises questions regarding the natural/human distinction and how human societies and cultures cope with risk. How “natural” are hazards, given human interventions inand interpretations of events, and what are the limitations of “objective” modernapproaches to risk? The chapter…Read more
  •  16
    Personal Robots, Appearance, and Human Good
    International Journal of Social Robotics 1 (3): 217-221. 2009.
    The development of pet robots, toy robots, and sex robots suggests a near-future scenario of habitual living with 'personal' robots. How should we evaluate their potential impact on the quality of our lives and existence?In this paper, I argue for an approach to ethics of personal robots that advocates a methodological turn from robots to humans, from mind to interaction, from intelligent thinking to social-emotional being, from reality to appearance, from right to good, from external criteria t…Read more
  •  12
    The spider and the web
    In Psychology of Risk Perception, Nova Science Publishers. pp. 133-145. 2010.
    Evolutionary biology shows that organisms have many traits that developed by natural selection as adaptations to their environment. The so-called 'mismatch theory' holds that if the environment changes faster than the ability of the organism to adapt and evolve, it finds itself mismatched to its environment. Studies in evolutionary psychology suggest that this is the case with many human emotional responses. In this essay I explore the implications of these studies for ethics of technological ri…Read more
  • Moral Craftsmanship
    In Seana Moran, David Cropley & James Kaufman (eds.), The Ethics of Creativity, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 46-61. 2014.
  •  56
    Contemporary health care relies on electronic devices. These technologies are not ethically neutral but change the practice of care. In light of Sennett's work and that of other thinkers one worry is that "e-care"aEuro"care by means of new information and communication technologies-does not promote skilful and careful engagement with patients and hence is neither conducive to the quality of care nor to the virtues of the care worker. Attending to the kinds of knowledge involved in care work and …Read more
  •  11
    The art of living with ICTs
    Foundations of Science 22 (2): 339-348. 2017.
    This essay shows that a sharp distinction between ethics and aesthetics is unfruitful for thinking about how to live well with technologies, and in particular for understanding and evaluating how we cope with human existential vulnerability, which is crucially mediated by the development and use of technologies such as electronic ICTs. It is argued that vulnerability coping is a matter of ethics and art: it requires developing a kind of art and techne in the sense that it always involves technol…Read more
  •  7
    Is Ethics of Robotics about Robots?
    Law, Innovation and Technology 3 (2): 241-250. 2011.
  • Like other teletechnological practices, drone fighting as remote fighting gives rise to a paradox with regard to the relation between ethics and distance: on the one hand, it bridges physical distance in the sense that it enables spying on people and killing people in other parts of the world. On the other hand, it seems to increase moral distance: if you are far away from your target, it becomes easier to kill. However, based on interviews with drone crew as published in the media, I show that …Read more
  • Talking to Robots
    On the Linguistic Construction of Personal Human-Robot Relations. 2011.
    How should we make sense of 'personal' human-robot relations, given that many people view robots as 'mere machines'? This paper proposes that we understand human-robot relations from a phenomenological view as social relations in which robots are constructed as quasi-others. It is argued that language mediates in this construction. Responding to research by Turkle and others, it is shown that our talking to robots reveals a shift from an impersonal third-person to a personal second-person perspe…Read more
  •  41
    The public thing
    Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 13 (3): 175-181. 2009.
    Is there a politics of artifacts, and if so, what does it mean? Defining the issue as a problem about the relation between the human and the non-human, I argue that our common philosophical concepts bar us from an adequate understanding of this problem. Using the work of Hannah Arendt and Bruno Latour, I explore an escape route that involves a radical redefinition of the social. But the cost of this solution is high: we would lose the metaphysical foundation for our belief in the absolute value …Read more