Full Description
This book offers an interdisciplinary overview of autonomy in artificial intelligence and robotics, positioning it as the central concept in the contemporary debate on AI's societal integration. The term itself is dangerously ambiguous: its meaning shifts dramatically when applied to a machine versus a human. While there is consensus on machine agency (the capacity to act), attributing autonomy in the rich, normative sense we attribute it to humans is a far more controversial and complex assertion.
This volume moves beyond isolated systems to consider hybrid human-machine autonomy, a space where AI's capabilities intersect with human agency. Autonomy is therefore explored not just as a technical attribute, but as a relational concept that redefines a user's capacity for self-governance in contexts of shared decision-making, assistive technology, and human augmentation. This central tension requires a broader approach to governance. The book argues that effective "regulation" is not merely law, but a wider domain for reflection, and that technology itself is a powerful regulatory force that must be shaped by a nuanced understanding of ethics, agency, values, and law.
This book confronts this challenge through a comprehensive, four-part structure. It begins with the Ethical Dimension, examining foundational questions and the profound social and educational implications of AI. It then moves to the Agential Dimension, focusing on embodied AI, robotics, and assistive healthcare. The third section, the Axiological Dimension, interrogates the popular concept of "value alignment," moving beyond its common technical framing to advance new approaches for embedding values in hybrid systems. Finally, the Regulatory Dimension provides a practical analysis of governance, legal frameworks like the EU AI Act, and complex applications from finance to autonomous weapons.
This book will be of interest to researchers in AI, robotics, philosophy, law, and education, especially those in interdisciplinary settings. It is also essential reading for policymakers and private-sector professionals seeking to design and govern systems where the coordination of human and artificial agents is paramount.
Contents
1. Regulating Autonomy: a Conceptual Introduction.- Part I. The ethical dimension: foundations, education and social implications.- 2. AI Ontological Freedom (as a limit for its regulation).- 3.The Concept of Co-Action: Its Roots and Its Place in the Philosophy of Technology.- 4."AI, or Am I?": Is child development lagging behind the development of artificial intelligence?.- 5.Ethical Challenges in Educational Interventions driven by Artificial Intelligence.- 6.If Generative AI Is the Answer, What is the Question? On the Social Consequences of Generative AI.- Part II. The agential dimension: embodied AI and assistive settings.- 7.Embodiment and Appearance: Robot Bodies and Human Responses.- 8.Ethics of Care, Relational Autonomy, and Assistive Robots.- 9.Robot ethics: Assessing risk from the perspective of autonomy.- 10. AI agents for health - Agency and autonomy in AI-driven healthcare.- Part III. The axiological dimension: embedding values into AI.- 11.Exploring 'Value Alignment'. A genealogy and three conceptions.- 12.Towards an Axiology of Intelligent Hybrid Systems.- 13.Four Settings and a Proposal (for the Exploration of Value Alignment in AI).- 14. Instilling Organisational Values in Firefighters through Simulation-Based Training.- 15. What is the Ecological Value of AI Used for Environmental Purposes and to What Extend is It Ethical?.- Part IV. The regulatory dimension: frameworks for governance and law.- 16. Governance of Artificial Agency and AI Value Chains: A Few Remarks on Autonomy from a Legal and Ethical Approach.- 17.The European Union Artificial Intelligence Act: Ethical Principles and the Regulation of AI for Social Welfare and Development.- 18. Repurposing Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems for disarmament.- 19.Advancing Responsible AI: An Analysis of Guidelines, Regulations, and Standards for Trustworthy and Responsible AI.- 20. AI and Financial Inclusion in Mexico: a Challenging Relation.
