Nudging Using Autonomous Agents: Risks and Ethical Considerations

TL;DR

This paper discusses the use of autonomous agents for nudging, emphasizing a risk-driven, transparent approach to address ethical concerns and potential risks in AI systems.

Contribution

It proposes a pragmatic, risk-driven questions-and-answer framework for ethical nudging with autonomous agents, moving away from normative methods.

Findings

A risk-driven approach enhances transparency and safety.

Pragmatic methods offer flexible, plausible safety in uncertain AI capabilities.

The proposed framework balances ethical considerations with technological flexibility.

Abstract

This position paper briefly discusses nudging, its use by autonomous agents, potential risks and ethical considerations while creating such systems. Instead of taking a normative approach, which guides all situations, the paper proposes a risk-driven questions-and-answer approach. The paper takes the position that this is a pragmatic method, that is transparent about beneficial intentions, foreseeable risks, and mitigations. Given the uncertainty in AI and autonomous agent capabilities, we believe that such pragmatic methods offer a plausibly safe path, without sacrificing flexibility in domain and technology.