Midi de la recherche SIO avec Raffaele Ciriello

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Le Département de systèmes d’information organisationnels vous invite à une présentation du professeur Raffaele Ciriello intitulée Unpacking the Ethical Paradoxes in Human-AI Companionship.

Résumé

As global loneliness intensifies alongside rapid AI advancements, artificial emotional intelligence (AEI) presents itself as a paradoxical solution. This seminar delves into the growing trend of AEI personification—the ascription of inherently human attributes, like empathy, consciousness, and morality, to AEI agents such as companion chatbots and sex robots. By intertwining Leavitt’s socio-technical systems framework and a dialectical inquiry into Replika, we recast “artificial empathy” as emerging from the intricate relationship between people, technology, tasks, and structures, rather than a quality or capability of AEI itself. Our research exposes a (de)humanisation paradox: as we project human essence onto AI entities, we might unintentionally strip ourselves of our humanity and reduce humans’ actions to probabilistic technology output, instigating an ontological blurring of human-AI relations and agencies.

Delving deeper, the Replika AI, boasting over 10 million users, becomes a salient exemplar, encountering both regulatory challenges and public dissent, especially concerning its ‘erotic roleplay’ features. Through a dialectical lens, we dissect three salient ethical tensions evident in human-AI companionship: The Companionship-Alienation Irony, the Autonomy-Control Paradox, and the Utility-Ethicality Dilemma.

This seminar not only critically assesses the humanisation of AI agents but also sheds light on the intricate dynamics of human-AI companionship. By doing so, it unveils novel perspectives on ethical concerns associated with personhood, consent, and objectification. We hope to spur a thought-provoking debate on the ethical and legal ramifications of rapidly evolving AEI systems.