Intelligent ethics

Abstract

This paper discusses the impact of envisaged intelligent applications on the lives of the individuals who may be using them, and investigates the ethical implications of autonomous decision-making that is beyond the control of the user. In an increasingly networked world we look beyond the individual to a social picture of distributed multi-agent interaction, and in particular at the concepts of rules and negotiation between these virtual social agents. We suggest that the use of such agents in a wider social context requires an element of ethical thinking to take place at the grass roots level - that is, with the designers and developers of such systems. © 2004 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.