Towards Machine Agency: a Philosophical and Technological Roadmap

A key question which will face elds of inquiry as diverse as philosophy, law, and even theology in the coming decades is that of machine agency. Simply put, at what point does the responsibility, legal or moral, for an act of a machine inhere in the machine itself instead of its (human) designers and builders? We examine in this context a selection of cognitive architectures for an arti cial general intelligence, and compare them with various standards of autonomy, moral agency, and legal adulthood. The Problem: Can a Machine be a Moral Agent? The cause of thy sin is inevitably determined in heaven; this did Venus, or Saturn, or Mars: That man, forsooth, esh and blood, and proud corruption, might be blameless; while the Creator and Ordainer of heaven and the stars is to bear the blame.