Robots, Chatbots, Self-Driving Cars: Perceptions of Mind and Morality Across Artificial Intelligences

TL;DR

This study explores how people perceive the mind and morality of various AI systems, revealing generally low perceived agency but higher moral responsibility attribution, especially in high-stakes contexts.

Contribution

It provides empirical data on perceptions of AI mind and morality, highlighting differences across AI types and implications for AI design and responsibility.

Findings

AI perceived to have low-to-moderate agency

Moral responsibility attributed more strongly than agency

High-stakes AI like self-driving cars rated as morally responsible

Abstract

AI systems have rapidly advanced, diversified, and proliferated, but our knowledge of people's perceptions of mind and morality in them is limited, despite its importance for outcomes such as whether people trust AIs and how they assign responsibility for AI-caused harms. In a preregistered online study, 975 participants rated 26 AI and non-AI entities. Overall, AIs were perceived to have low-to-moderate agency (e.g., planning, acting), between inanimate objects and ants, and low experience (e.g., sensing, feeling). For example, ChatGPT was rated only as capable of feeling pleasure and pain as a rock. The analogous moral faculties, moral agency (doing right or wrong) and moral patiency (being treated rightly or wrongly) were higher and more varied, particularly moral agency: The highest-rated AI, a Tesla Full Self-Driving car, was rated as morally responsible for harm as a chimpanzee. We discuss how design choices can help manage perceptions, particularly in high-stakes moral contexts.