ABSTRACT
The robot invasion is not some future event that is coming; it is already upon us. As mechanisms and artifacts of various configurations and capabilities come to occupy influential and important positions in our world, there are questions—difficult questions—having to do with the way we decide and distribute social responsibilities and rights: At what point (if ever) can or should a robot, an algorithm, or other autonomous system be held responsible for the decisions it makes or the actions it deploys? And at what point (if ever) might we have to consider extending something like rights—civil, moral, or legal standing—to these socially active devices? In this second chapter, we take up and investigate the standard ways of thinking about technological things and how they relate to questions regarding social responsibilities and rights.
