•  8
    In this paper we introduce the concept of attentional scaffolds and show the resemblance between social media platforms and slot machines, both functioning as hostile attentional scaffolds. The first section establishes the groundwork for the concept of attentional scaffolds and draws parallels to the mechanics of slot machines, to argue that social media platforms aim to capture users’ attention to maximize engagement through a system of intermittent rewards. The second section shifts focus to …Read more
  •  9
    ‘A Life of Our Own’: Why Authenticity is More Than a Condition for Autonomy
    with Cristian Https://Orcidorg Iftode, Alexandra Zorilă, and Muriel Https://Orcidorg Leuenberger
    Journal of Value Inquiry 1-26. forthcoming.
  •  15
    Social robots are increasingly developed for the companionship of children. In this article we explore the moral implications of children-robot friendships using the Aristotelian framework of virtue ethics. We adopt a moderate position and argue that, although robots cannot be virtue friends, they can nonetheless enable children to exercise ethical and intellectual virtues. The Aristotelian requirements for true friendship apply only partly to children: unlike adults, children relate to friendsh…Read more
  •  5
    Robo-Education and the Pedagogical Divide
    In Raul Hakli, Pekka Mäkelä & Johanna Seibt (eds.), Social Robots in Social Institutions, Ios Press. pp. 174-183. 2022.
    On the background of recent concerns regarding online education in times of pandemic and a growing pedagogical divide in terms of unequal access to skilled teachers, we consider it timely to open a debate surrounding the use of social robots in education fulfilling a role that is anchored in the institution of pedagogs in Antiquity and which was somewhat left aside from contemporary inquiries: the pedagogical role of supporting and complementing the teaching activity. We develop our conceptual p…Read more
  •  60
    Understanding responsibility in Responsible AI. Dianoetic virtues and the hard problem of context
    with Mihaela Constantinescu, Cristina Voinea, and Radu Uszkai
    Ethics and Information Technology 23 (4): 803-814. 2021.
    During the last decade there has been burgeoning research concerning the ways in which we should think of and apply the concept of responsibility for Artificial Intelligence. Despite this conceptual richness, there is still a lack of consensus regarding what Responsible AI entails on both conceptual and practical levels. The aim of this paper is to connect the ethical dimension of responsibility in Responsible AI with Aristotelian virtue ethics, where notions of context and dianoetic virtues pla…Read more
  •  42
    Is Online Moral Outrage Outrageous? Rethinking the Indignation Machine
    with Emilian Mihailov and Cristina Voinea
    Science and Engineering Ethics 29 (2): 1-18. 2023.
    Moral outrage is often characterized as a corrosive emotion, but it can also inspire collective action. In this article we aim to deepen our understanding of the dual nature of online moral outrage which divides people and contributes to inclusivist moral reform. We argue that the specifics of violating different types of moral norms will influence the effects of moral outrage: moral outrage against violating harm-based norms is less antagonistic than moral outrage against violating loyalty and …Read more
  •  410
    Many hypotheses have been advanced to explain the collective irrationality of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, such as partisanship and ideology, exposure to misinformation and conspiracy theories or the effectiveness of public messaging. This paper presents a complementary explanation to epistemic accounts of collective irrationality, focusing on the moral reasons underlying people’s decisions regarding vaccination. We argue that the moralization of COVID-19 risk mitigation measures contributed to t…Read more
  •  32
    Experimental and relational authenticity: how neurotechnologies impact narrative identities
    with Cristian Iftode, Alexandra Zorilă, and Emilian Mihailov
    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1-18. forthcoming.
    The debate about how neurotechnologies impact authenticity has focused on two inter-related dimensions: self-discovery and self-creation. In this paper, we develop a broader framework that includes the experimental and relational dimensions of authenticity, both understood as decisive for shaping one’s narrative identity. In our view, neurointerventions that alter someone’s personality traits will also impact her very own self-understanding across time. We argue that experimental authenticity on…Read more
  •  110
    Blame It on the AI? On the Moral Responsibility of Artificial Moral Advisors
    with Mihaela Constantinescu, Radu Uszkai, and Cristina Voinea
    Philosophy and Technology 35 (2): 1-26. 2022.
    Deep learning AI systems have proven a wide capacity to take over human-related activities such as car driving, medical diagnosing, or elderly care, often displaying behaviour with unpredictable consequences, including negative ones. This has raised the question whether highly autonomous AI may qualify as morally responsible agents. In this article, we develop a set of four conditions that an entity needs to meet in order to be ascribed moral responsibility, by drawing on Aristotelian ethics and…Read more
  •  23
    Respecting Older Adults: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic
    with Cristina Voinea and Tenzin Wangmo
    Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 19 (2): 213-223. 2022.
    The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many social problems and put the already vulnerable, such as racial minorities, low-income communities, and older individuals, at an even greater risk than before. In this paper we focus on older adults’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic and show that the risk-mitigation measures presumed to protect them, alongside the generalization of an ageist public discourse, exacerbated the pre-existing marginalization of older adults, disproportionately affectin…Read more
  •  500
    The emperor is naked: Moral diplomacies and the ethics of AI
    with Cristina Voinea and Radu Uszkai
    Információs Társadalom 21 (2): 83-96. 2021.
    With AI permeating our lives, there is widespread concern regarding the proper framework needed to morally assess and regulate it. This has given rise to many attempts to devise ethical guidelines that infuse guidance for both AI development and deployment. Our main concern is that, instead of a genuine ethical interest for AI, we are witnessing moral diplomacies resulting in moral bureaucracies battling for moral supremacy and political domination. After providi…Read more
  •  328
    Artificial Intelligence, Robots and the Ethics of the Future
    with Cristina Voinea
    Revue Roumaine de Philosophie 63 (2). 2019.
    The future rests under the sign of technology. Given the prevalence of technological neutrality and inevitabilism, most conceptualizations of the future tend to ignore moral problems. In this paper we argue that every choice about future technologies is a moral choice and even the most technology-dominated scenarios of the future are, in fact, moral provocations we have to imagine solutions to. We begin by explaining the intricate connection between morality and the future. After a short excursi…Read more
  •  422
    The world is a big network. Pandemic, the Internet and institutions
    Revista de Filosofie Aplicata 3 (Supplementary Issue): 136-161. 2020.
    2020 is the year of the first pandemic lived through the Internet. More than half of the world population is now online and because of self-isolation, our moral and social lives unfold almost exclusively online. Two pressing questions arise in this context: how much can we rely on the Internet, as a set of technologies, and how much should we trust online platforms and applications? In order to answer these two questions, I develop an argument based on two fundamental assumptions: the developmen…Read more
  •  364
    The Info-Computational Turn in Bioethics
    In Emilian Mihailov, Tenzin Wangmo, Victoria Federiuc & Bernice Elger (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Bioethics: European Perspectives, De Gruyter Open. pp. 108-120. 2018.
    Our technological lifeworld has become an info-computational media populated by data and algorithms, an artificial environment for life and shared experiences. In this chapter, I tried to sketch three new assumptions for bioethics – it is hardly possible to substantiate ethical guidelines or an idea of normativity in an aprioristic manner; moral status is a function of data entities, not something solely human; agency is plural and thus is shared or sometimes delegated – in order to chart a prop…Read more
  •  349
    The Internet as Cognitive Enhancement
    with Cristina Voinea, Emilian Mihailov, and Julian Savulescu
    Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (4): 2345-2362. 2020.
    The Internet has been identified in human enhancement scholarship as a powerful cognitive enhancement technology. It offers instant access to almost any type of information, along with the ability to share that information with others. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the enhancement potential of the Internet. We argue that unconditional access to information does not lead to cognitive enhancement. The Internet is not a simple, uniform technology, either in its composition, or in it…Read more
  •  5461
    Etică și integritate academică
    Editura Universității din București. 2018.
    „Strategia noastră a fost de a gândi un text util pentru profesori, dar de a-l scrie mai ales pentru studenți. Etica este interesantă cu precădere atunci când pune în joc intuiții morale sau valori diferite și când ne confruntăm cu dileme în care decizia nu este evidentă, iar dezacordul este rezonabil. Prin urmare, am încercat să ne ferim pe cât a fost posibil de verdicte și de simpla enumerare a unor interdicții. Veți observa că, de cele mai multe ori, exercițiile și temele de discuție nu au so…Read more
  •  23
    Filosofia științelor umane. In memoriam Mihail Radu Solcan (edited book)
    with Mircea Flonta and Emanuel-Mihail Socaciu
    Editura Universității din București. 2015.
    A collective volume in memoriam Mihail Radu Solcan.
  •  78
    Mind the Gap! How the Digital Turn Upsets Intellectual Property
    with Emanuel-Mihail Socaciu
    Science and Engineering Ethics 25 (1): 247-264. 2019.
    Intellectual property is one of the highly divisive issues in contemporary philosophical and political debates. The main objective of this paper is to explore some sources of tension between the formal rules of intellectual property (particularly copyright and patents) and the emerging informal norms of file sharing and open access in online environments. We look into the file sharing phenomena not only to illustrate the deepening gap between the two sets of norms, but to cast some doubt on the …Read more
  •  42
    Climate Change, Intellectual Property, and Global Justice
    with Monica Ştefănescu
    Public Reason 4 (1-2): 197-209. 2012.
    The current situation of climate change at a global level clearly requires policy changes at local levels. Global efforts to reach a consensus regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions have so far been focused on developing Climate-Friendly Technologies (CFTs). The problem is that in order for these efforts to have an actual impact at a global level we need to be concerned with more than just promotion and info-dissemination on the already existing CFTs, but also with costs, implementa…Read more
  •  613
    Intellectual Property, Globalization, and Left-Libertarianism
    Symposion: Theoretical and Applied Inquiries in Philosophy and Social Sciences 2 (3). 2015.
    Intellectual property has become the apple of discord in today’s moral and political debates. Although it has been approached from many different perspectives, a final conclusion has not been reached. In this paper I will offer a new way of thinking about intellectual property rights (IPRs), from a left-libertarian perspective. My thesis is that IPRs are not (natural) original rights, aprioric rights, as it is usually argued. They are derived rights hence any claim for intellectual property is w…Read more
  •  40
    Life and Ownership: Intellectual Property limits, from Genes to Synthetic Biology
    Ethics in Biology, Engineering and Medicine 6 (1-2): 139-149. 2015.
    The purpose of this analysis is to widen and clarify the debate which arose during the last years around granting patents (and other ownership rights) upon different methods and mechanisms of manipulating and engineering life. In doing so, I draw a limited, prima facie argument against many sorts of entitlements or granting rights to those capable of manipulating life at its core level. The general tendency nowadays is to put pressure on the institutional setting in order to accept and promote t…Read more
  •  10608
    The purpose of this paper is to assess the emergence of the pirate movements in the European Union. Our goal is to sketch the steps towards a research agenda for this grassroots political movement which gained momentum since 2009. To attain our goal we showed the re-signification of the concept of piracy in the debate around intellectual property and its institutional settlement. Afterwards we analysed the big political themes of several European Pirate Parties and their struggle to follow the p…Read more