AUTHOR
Lucas Richard

ABSTRACT

In this paper I discuss the attempt by Coleman (1996) to suggest a mechanism for attributing a Kantian morality to computers. This is part of a larger project of Coleman to posit the likelihood of computers being moral agents. Here I will provide an outline of Coleman’s account, show what I think is wrong with it, what I think is right with it, and, lastly, suggest an alternative approach to computers being Kantian moral persons

In my outline of Coleman’s account I provide a non-evaluative summary. Coleman begins her account with the thought that at some point we do need to stop and consider the moral status of computational machines. She goes on to say that a great deal of the literature on the subject misses an important point when authors show that computers can, or cannot, be moral in the human sense. That is, the authors try to attribute human moral characteristics to computers. She then goes on to give an account of Kant’s moral theory including his conception of realms. She separates the notions of freedom and autonomy and describes how Kant reconciles freedom with determinism by putting freedom in the intelligible realm. She then makes the analogy of Kant’s realms with that of the components of computers (hardware and software). Coleman presents a strategy for being able to (re)create the Categorical Imperative in computers. She then turns her attention to problem solving and considers a number of common problem solving strategies. She says that they all have logic as their basis and that computers are likely to be able to implement them, being the ultimate logic machine (for this she uses the idea of a Turing Machine) that they are. For this she takes a programming approach calling the programming of problem solving and introduces a number of programs, Prational, Papply, Putility and Pinterest for deriving moral principles. Eventually she concludes that computational personhood is possible.

After this summary I go on to critique her account. The shortcomings I find are: moral considerability vs moral persons, computer parts vs realms, freedom vs logic, understandability, with vs from, and, what she calls, missing bits. I will show why I think that these parts of her paper are problematic and introduce an alternative approach.

I claim that Coleman makes a straightforward mistake in conflating consideration with personhood. While all living (and possibly some others as well) entities are due moral consideration of some sort, this does not mean they are a person. We consider all sorts of entities (trees, dogs, etc.) when carrying out moral deliberation but none so far have claimed that trees are persons of any sort especially moral persons. So that cannot be what she means. This leaves the thought that the entity in question is considerable, that is, it is deserving of consideration. Coleman has something particular in mind when she says that an entity gains moral considerability, enough to make them persons. That something is the distinction between acting in accord with and from the moral law. This is the distinction that Kant thought made for moral persons.

In order to make the idea that computers might be Kantian moral persons seem more plausible, Coleman asks how a computer might fit in with Kant’s sensible and intelligible realms. She draws an analogy between the parts of a computer (specifically a Turing machine) and the realms. I show that the use of Turing Machines in this context is faulty. I also show that the hardware/sensible and software/intelligible analogy is flawed and offer an alternative interpretation.

Coleman also faces difficulties in her proposal of programs for implementing moral strategies. She suggests that a program, named Prational, be created to implement Kant’s moral theory. She then goes on to point out a clear difficulty with this and suggests a corrective: incorporating programs for deriving moral principles. But these correctives are not without their own problems, notably the stopping problem. As well there are more things missing from Coleman’s account. The first is any detail on what might constitute Prational. Much would need to be said to make the program seem possible. The second is that there is simply nothing about the different kinds of beings that could be considered to be rational.

Given that Coleman’s approach has its difficulties why have I bothered discussing it at all?

It turns out that there are some good things to take away from all this. Coleman has provided an interesting and initial sounding board from which to pursue Kant’s moral theory as it might be applied to computers. However much more needs to be said to cache out the ideas.

In the final part of the paper I introduce and sketch an alternative approach that can address some of Coleman’s shortcomings such as the moral considerability problem. I use Floridi and Sanders’ notions of Levels of Abstraction as well as Perry 6’s idea of a Ladder of Autonomy to propose a schema called artificial ethics (Æ) whereby agents can be assessed to determine whether they are indeed moral agents. This schema allows the possibility of any being to be considered for moral agency. This is done along a spectrum of 2304 possibilities and without having to resort to ascriptions of human moral agency. It also avoids the temptation of asking questions that make comparisons between differing moral beings. Questions such as: Are computers like animals? Are computers like human children? are rendered unnecessary, perhaps even pointless. I discuss the merits of my approach.

Moral beings can be, individually and independently, compared against the criteria to see where they fall. This is important because a moral being ought to determine its behaviour towards other beings based on the nature and extent of the moral concern that attaches to other beings. The mere fact of where something falls within the schema is of itself of no particular moral significance.

AUTHOR
David A. Rice

ABSTRACT

Digital electronic information, computer program, and communication technologies rapidly and widely transformed all sectors, nooks and crannies of society and private and public resource allocations over the last two decades. Their advent generated new demands on human conceptualization, thought, expression, and dialogue about the new phenomena. Universal discourse about the technologies, features, uses, and their intended or unintended consequences begged linguistic expression in ways that evoked familiar concepts. “Cyberspace” and “cyberlaw” became metaphors prominent in contemporary “information society” and “information law” discourse. Judges and lawmakers not trained or versed in underlying technologies and how their use and dissemination effects change often have turned or alluded to the new common discourse language when dealing with new-appearing as well as genuinely new “information age” issues in their decision and policy making roles.

Recently, several academic commentators have turned their attention to the meaning(s), utility, and (un)intended consequences of “cyberspace” and “cyberlaw” Some have stressed the need to identify and redress consequences not originally anticipated or intended. Other writers have reflected upon the modern popularization of “intellectual property,” “intellectual property rights” or “IPRs” and the derivative “intellectual property law” as substitutes for focusing on the subsumed but legally distinct particulars and purposes of patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. A commonly expressed concern is that use of these terms underlies judicial and legislative changes in the balance that each strikes between private and public, or holder and user, interests. Similarly, loose usage of terms such as “bio-piracy” has elicited critical comment.

Unfortunately, little serious attention has been directed toward the proclamation and popularization of ”piracy,” “theft,” steal” and “counterfeit” as metaphors for what is but copyright infringement. The paper will identity and discuss how these terms which strongly connote criminal behavior and intent have entered into legal policy making and adjudication processes through propitiating use by digital format product producers, trade organizations, important government reports, public announcement of private and law enforcement agency initiation of legal actions, and the press. Mounting evidence indicates that such casual and pejorative usage in the commencement and prosecution of private or government-initiated legal proceedings, including use of the terms in forensic expert reports, often achieves its intended outcome-influencing effects. These rarely contested or judicially checked uses interject conclusions that color perception in a way that erects barriers to effective defense. Similar substantial evidence exists concerning the introduction, consideration, and enactment of new legislation. In both settings, this misuse of metaphor to shape rather than describe reality operates to legitimize and further the often criticized expansion of digital work copyright and other legal protections. Specifically, the concern is with the tendency to equate digital works and content with real and tangible personal property which leads, in turn, to using terms such as “theft,” “steal,” piracy” and “counterfeit” to promote and justify reshaping of statutory limited exclusionary rights in intangible personal property by analogies drawn to stronger enclosure/exclusion real property and possessory personal property ownership rights.

The paper will address this phenomenon and its consequences in especially the adjudication context through identification and consideration of illustrative public announcements of recent private and public copyright infringement actions and reported U.S. federal court decisions. In addition, it will note acceptance of the usages by the press and Wikipedia, and even the Oxford English Dictionary. The origins of the paper are the author’s notice that “counterfeit” is used with increasing frequency in judicial opinions involving copyright infringement facts, claims, and statutory remedies although U.S. “intellectual property”statutes speak of counterfeiting liability only in trademark law. This overlay on widespread use of “piracy” in the same manner spurred more extensive research into the phenomenon and reflection on the power of inapt and over broad metaphor misuse to shape, not describe, the meaning and application of law.

The paper topic, in summary, addresses metaphor misuse to shape or influence perception of reality rather than to describe it, a matter of jurisprudential and therefore social importance and ethical significance given that metaphor and analogy are prominent devices in U.S. and other common law judicial reasoning when dealing with new-seeming or new legal facts and issues. The author’s intention is to present and publish a first paper on the topic and, with aid of participants’ commentary and the author’s further research and reflection, eventually publish a more fully developed journal article . . .

AUTHOR
Carson Reynolds, Masatoshi Ishikawa

ABSTRACT

What exactly would it take for a robot to be arrested? Prima facie, this appears to be an easy question. Clearly, being caught in the process of some sort of law-breaking ought to be enough. But really, should it not be the robot’s designer or owner who should be arrested and the robot instead impounded?

The goal of this paper is to speculate upon the legal questions that abound when robot agency is assumed. The approach will be to describe a scenario involving robot law breaking. It is our plan to use this scenario to interview individuals about robotics and ethics. As such, the paper expands upon an earlier paper regarding “RobotTrickery” (Reynolds and Ishikawa, 2006).

Robot Agency

In Japanese,two separateverbs canbe usedto describeexistence. There is arimasu, which is used for dead or inanimate objects. There is also imasu, which is instead used for living objects.For instance,ifI were describing my bicycle,I would use arimasu. However,ifI were describing a living being such asa person or animalI would use imasu instead.

Curiously, it is increasingly common for the use of imasu to describe robots. This may be due to the animistic aspect of Shinto belief, which sees gods as existing in many objects (Bartneck, 2004). But it may also reflect a tendency in popular culture to increasingly view robots as “alive.”

Life on the Inside

Being alive, however does not necessarily entail the ability to commit a crime. It seems ridiculous to talk about a lawbreaking pet. Of course, an animal can become dangerous and need to be “put down” (as is the current American euphemism for euthanasia). And then there are certain animals that are themselves illegal (as opposed to having the ability to break laws). For instance, it is illegal to transport endangered species (Reeve, 2004). Even in cases where animals are participating in an illegal activity such as dogfighting or cockfighting, we do not view the animals as the criminals but instead blame the owners for inhumane treatment.

Picciotto Roboto

Suppose instead that a robot were involved in a criminal enterprise. Perhaps thereisagang that decidesto use robot security guards, reasoning that they’dbe less likely to snitch or skim from the goods.

Robotic security guards have been developed (Saitoh et al., 1995) and some such as Sohgo Security Services Guardrobo are being marketed (Anonymous, 2005). Furthermore, researchers are working to increase their ability to act autonomously (Everett et al., 1994).

It would seem that the only thing required to have a security robot participate in a criminal enterprise would be a commercially available security robot and an organization set upon its use.

But in this case, the robot still seems to be an unwitting accomplice. Despite increasing sophistication of security robots (Everett and Gage, 1997), theystill do not have free will. And so theylargely carry out the actions intended by their designers or users. As such, it seems that the robot is just in instrument just asfactory which produces illegal products might be. The robot in this case should not be arrested,but perhaps impounded and auctioned.

The Robot Kleptomaniac

Suppose thata robot has free will and self-chosen goals. Let us imagine that a robot wishes to remain operational as long as possible,buthasafixed supplyof energy.In orderto remain operational, it needs power from commonly available batteries.Now suppose that the robot is in a situation in which its power is dangerously low.It plans and executes a robbery of batteries from a local convenience store.

If such a robot were built and caught it seems a more likely candidate for an actual robotic lawbreaker. The robot’s designer or owner might share in the blame of making or owning a robot capable of robbery. But still in this case, the robot ultimately chooses and carries out the crime.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Alvaro Cassinelli, Courtney Humphries, and James Forren for participating in a discussion that led to this article.

REFERENCES

Anonymous (2005). Japanese robots to guard shops and
offices. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8330600/.

Bartneck,C. (2004). From fictionto science –acultural
reflection on social robots. In Workshop on Shaping Human-
Robot Interaction -Understanding the Social Aspects of
Intelligent Robotic Products.

Everett, H. R. and Gage, D.W. (1997). Third-generation
security robot. InKenyon, C. H. and Kachroo,P., editors,
Mobile Robots XI and Automated Vehicle Control Systems,
volume 2903, pages 118–126. SPIE.

Everett,H.R., Gilbreath,G.A.,, and Laird,R.T. (1994).
Coordinated control of multiple security robots. InWolfe,
W.J.andChun,W.H., editors,Mobile Robots VIII,volume
2058, pages 292–305. SPIE.

Reeve, R. (2004). Policing International Trade in Endan
-gered Species: The Cites Treaty and Compliance. Chatham
House, London, Great Britain.

Reynolds, C. and Ishikawa, M. (2006). Robot trickery.
In International Workshop on Ethics of Human Interaction
with Robotic, Bionic, and AI Systems: Concepts and Poli
-cies, Naples, Italy.

Saitoh, M., Takahashi, Y., Sankaranarayanan, A.,
Ohmachi, H., and Marukawa, K. (1995). Amobile robot
testbed with manipulator for security guard application. In

Robotics and Automation, 1995. Proceedings., 1995 IEEE
International Conference on, volume 3, pages 2518–2523.

AUTHOR
Shih Hung-Pin 

ABSTRACT

A university can be considered as a knowledge-based learning community where scholars engaged in research to create knowledge, produce innovative technology, or assist enterprises to design new products to fit market needs, as well as transfer knowledge to students. Moreover, the diffusion of information technologies has changed the structure of universities, and pushes a university to invest more resources than the past to achieve organizational advantage in competitive environment. Based on a case study in Taiwan, this study surveyed a university’s 15-year development history to address how it was built and succeeds in achieving a reputable position in higher education. The findings of the case study can provide helpful insights to understand the evolutionary process of a knowledge-based learning community.

The growth of new private universities is increasingly in Taiwan during 1990s. However, globalization in higher education causes the evolutionary process of learning communities. Many private universities face strong challenges in the beginning of the 21st century as they have to compete with local and international universities under limited human and finance resources. This study pays attention to a success case, a private university with good research and teaching in higher education systems, which spent almost 10 years to join top-10 among 160 or more universities in Taiwan. This university not only has successfully entered higher education systems, but also has achieved organizational advantage in the competitive market for the past 15 years. This study applies social capital theory to explain the building of a knowledge-based learning community with respect to its evolutionary process in social interactions.

From the social capital perspective, this study aims to explore how does the private university seeks available and useful resources to achieve organizational advantage in competitive environment. This study identified a three-phase evolution of social capital in building the target university. In the first phase, the top management of the university invited reputable scholars to join the executive committee, and to discuss their mission and vision to develop shared value of building a new university to make contributions to the knowledge society. Initially, the university develops internal cognitive capital in the social interaction with committee members. Meanwhile, the university also invited famous and reputable foreign universities to campus to provide their success experiences and even to build strategic alliance with respect to research support and oversea training programs. The long-term plan of international cooperation in university-to-university is helpful for new entrant to conduct strong social ties in global learning communities. This strategic alliance enables the private university to develop structural capital to connect other community members via communication-intensive social networks. Thus, the structural capital is developed under strong social ties and information-rich communication context that spanning particular community members.

In the second phase, the university not only advanced to invite local scholars from public universities, managerial consultants from local enterprises, and international experts from U.S., Europe, and Japan to join the academic departments in order to catch external human resources to support research and teaching, but also use information technologies such as the Internet and Web channels to build a knowledge-based learning community, including digital libraries and Web-based learning systems. Particularly, this university is a pioneer in Taiwan that provides EMBA programs to engineers and managers from local enterprises. In the second phase of building a knowledge-based learning community, this university has successfully developed relational capital and thus achieves the trustworthy by Ministry of Education, enterprises, and local students. In the third phase, the university integrates existing human resources to offer international courses. The university also provides learning opportunities to senior and graduated students by encouraging them to participate in project plans in local enterprises under supervised by faculty members. The learning process involved in work practices enables students and faculty members to develop distributed cognitive capital to share understanding and interpretation of knowledge use.

In sum, this study found that the university initially develops structural capital and finally builds relational capital with enterprises. The evolution from structural dimension to relational dimension of social capital depends on the development of resource-intensive (the integration of academic research and practical applications in engineering and business disciplines) social networks for knowledge sharing under cooperative context. Additionally, this university develops centralized cognitive capital with core scholars in the first phase, but finally builds distributed cognitive capital with students in the third phase. The evolutionary process from centralized cognitive dimension to distributed cognitive dimension of social capital depends on community members’ active participation, organizational cohesiveness, and strong social ties that spanning social networks. Overall, the evolution of social capital enables a knowledge-based learning community to adapt to competitive environments and achieve organizational advantage.

AUTHOR
S. R. Ponelis, J. J. Britz

ABSTRACT

Piracy in the music industry is a global phenomenon, a fact repeatedly bemoaned by major music companies. Piracy has always been a problem but the rise of new information and communication technologies (ICT) have made it a straightforward and relatively uncomplicated exercise to commit. This ability to unbundle content from conduit through digitisation has given rise to a new generation of information goods. These information goods have certain characteristics that distinguish it from other economic goods, in particular that the cost structure of information goods comprises a high fixed cost but low variable and marginal costs (Varian, 1998). In competitive markets prices are driven toward the marginal cost.

This atypical cost structure of information goods in competitive markets result in the price of information goods tending to zero. Since the price of a compact disc (CD) is frequently considered exorbitant relative to the perceived cost of producing one, many individuals may feel that this injustice inflicted by the manufacturers justify piracy (Bagchi, Kirs and Cerveny, 2006:73); piracy through file sharing and illegal downloads alone may have cut album sales by as much as a quarter in the past 5 years (Edgecliffe-Johnson, 2005). Major artists have little time for the music companies’ complaints about the impact of the Internet on their business models. According to Mariah Carey “if the labels would have been less greedy at the beginning, they would not be dealing with this now” (Edgecliffe-Johnson, 2005).

In order to counter this trend, the competitive value of the information goods must be protected so that the act of creation can be supported and stimulated through by means compensation for this creation. Such creations include music, novels, medicines, computer software (Prakash, 1999). These creations are referred to as intellectual property (IP), which is defined as a means of acquiring ownership over a particular resource that is intangible in nature. Protection of IP is done legally by means of intellectual property rights (IPR).

In an attempt to prevent piracy IPR in all information-intensive industries (particularly in the entertainment and related industries) have been increasingly tightened. It has been no different in the music industry. The music companies are incredibly powerful players and have, for example, together with other entertainment companies lobbied in the US for more stringent copyright protection with regard to digital media which has subsequently been introduced. These are referred to as digital rights management or sometimes digital restrictions management (DRM). However, the continuing fight against piracy (for example, the global Motion Picture Association of America or MPAA campaign championed by soccer player Pelé) is evidence that this remedy is not entirely effective. The piracy of music by consumers affects not only the music companies but also those responsible for creating the music, the musicians themselves. This gives rise to a question: why is piracy continuing in spite of stricter copyright laws and what are the alternative ways in which this trend be reversed?

Bagchi, Kirs and Cerveny (2006:75) found that “for piracy rates to decrease there must not only be a change in economic conditions, but also in societal structure and attitudes.” In order to answer the abovementioned the paper will examine societal attitudes; in particular the increasing emphasis on legislation and the loss of recognition and respect of the Other and the products of his/her mind will be the point of departure in this enquiry.

The paper will be structured in the following manner: first, a broad introduction to the problem will be discussed, namely how music companies have skewed the balance between the creators and consumers of music and as a result given rise to them being circumvented by means of ever-improving ICTs, to their own and the creators’ financial detriment. Second, the underlying ethical approaches of the stakeholders will be critically examined. Last, having critically examined the underlying ethical approaches giving rise to the situation potential means of resolving this standoff in a fair manner is discussed.

REFERENCES

Bagchi, K., Kirs, P. and Cerveny, R. 2006. Global Software Piracy: Can Economic Factors Alone Explain The Trend? Communications of the ACM, 49(6):70-75.

Edgecliffe-Johnson, A. 2005. The Eager Diva. Financial Times [online], December 17, 2005. Available WWW: http://www.mariahdaily.com/corantofiles/news-archive-12-2005.shtml (accessed August 18, 2006).

Prakash, S. 1999. Towards a synergy between biodiversity and intellectual property rights. Journal of World Intellectual Property, 2(5).

Varian, H. R. 1998. Markets for Information Goods [Online]. Available from: http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/japan/index.html (Accessed 25 October 2004).

AUTHOR
Piotr Pawlak

ABSTRACT

The fast spreading presence of the IT technology, Internet most of all, at all levels of our lives, results in numerous changes in human activity. The expansion of the Internet is parallel to the process of globalization which causes the creation and growth of the global disproportion meaning that major part of the global capital is held in the hands of few countries named the global centre while only little is left for the remaining peripheral countries. Another issue is this one “western” standard being imposed throughout the world which questions such important aspects of culture as social awareness, or especially cultural identity. When taking into account the consistent process of the Internet popularization, a question has to be posed as to its role within the widely understood globalization of the culture. Acquiring the clear benefits of the development of the electronic communication systems, I wish to touch upon certain negative aspects of the IT revolution.

In my speech I would like to deal with the problem of the “cultural imperialism”, described by the researchers of humanities of the second half of the 20th c. (Herbert I. Schiller, Thomas Guback, Stuart Ewan, Georg Gerbner and others). This term (popular in the 70ties for the communication research) was used to describe the uneven information flow, to pinpoint its negative effect on cultures and economy. “Cultural Imperialism” dealt primarily with the relations among the wealthy, developed countries (that means basically the USA) and the newly born, developing countries (it is worth remembering that the post war years were the era of total, global even decolonization). The main tools of this imperialism were to be especially the mass media, TV, cinema, and radio.

As mentioned above, my aim was to analyze the Internet as a new super mass medium with regard to its role within the process of culture globalization. I wish to pay special attention to the features that would identify the global network as another – most dangerous tool of “Cultural Imperialism”. The authors of the “Cultural Imperialism” theory treated in the works about the traditional media, not taking the Internet into account. It happened so due to a simple cause that when the spread of the Internet among greater amount of users (beginning of the 90ties) took place, the theory itself had been to a great extent forgotten. The Internet as a medium differs indeed form TV, cinema, or radio nevertheless there is a reasoned fear that within the IT space (cyberspace) created by it, the process of imposing one, dominating culture on everyone may be taking place.

I wish to have a closer look at the architecture of the Internet in order to (by presenting adequate data) highlight its certain features, characteristic also for the theory of „Cultural Imperialism”. On the basis of the analysis of the mentioned theory, several main features constituting the imperial character of the media may be pinpointed:

1. The presence of a given world system
2. The presence of less developed countries when compared with the dominating centre
3. The presence of the dominating centre of the given system meaning the developed countries, monopolizing information, privileged when compared with the less developed countries
4. The presence of values and structures, and therefore culture and organization that are characteristic to dominating centre and strange to the peripheral countries. Such organizations (media, corporations) cause the expansion of the culture of the dominating centre.

To justify my assumptions, I wish to highlight the following facts:

1. The Internet is in fact the creation of the North American culture
2. The basic framework of the Internet is still placed within the territory of the United States of America
3. The trade of any products, necessary for enlarging the Net’s infrastructure (electronic equipment, software, etc.) is centralized in The United States of America
4. The trade of any widely understood content of the Internet (cultural products included) is centralized in the United States of America
5. The global flow of the information within the cyberspace is based upon the basic formula, placed in the United States of America

I would also like to stress the problem of digital exclusion, which I regard as one of the major factors in accordance with the thesis of the imperial character of the Internet. The consequence of the presence of various barriers is the overall set of facts that may be called „digital exclusion”. The digital exclusion generally applies to the division of the world population into two parts. The first part possesses the potential possibility to access the global IT infrastructure along with the possibility to make use of information sources placed there; the other part does not possess such a possibility.