Aug 25, 2025
AI, robots, and other technologies are raising some thorny ethical questions. Is it OK for people to become attached to robot pets? Or to have a funeral service for a robot when it “dies”? How much authority should people assign to chatbots? Webb Keane dives into these and more in his book “Animals, Robots, Gods: Adventures in the Moral Imagination.”
• Animals, Robots, Gods: Adventures in the Moral Imagination, by Webb Keane, published by Princeton University Press
• Webb Keane at U. Michigan
• Why we should fear the AI godbot (op-ed in the Spectator, by Webb Keane and Scott Shapiro, July 27, 2023):
AI is made by humans and can be constrained by humans. We should not give AI divine authority over human dilemmas. Humans are morally accountable for their actions. As agonising as some ethical issues are, we cannot outsource them to snippets of code. AI will only become godlike if we make it so.
• Could an AI Barbie Stunt the Emotional Growth of a Generation? (IEEE, Aug 21, 2025): “A partnership between OpenAI and Mattel raises sobering questions.”
Mattel, the world’s largest toy company, has partnered with OpenAI to make that a reality. In June, the companies announced a collaboration to “bring a new dimension of AI-powered innovation and magic to Mattel’s iconic brands.” . . .Children, especially in early developmental stages, are acutely sensitive to tone, timing, and emotional mirroring. Children playing with AI toys will believe they’re being understood, when in fact, the system is only predicting plausible next words.
We’re at a point with AI where LLMs are affecting adults in profound and unexpected ways, sometimes triggering mental health crises or reinforcing false beliefs or dangerous ideas. OpenAI, to its credit, has hired forensic psychiatrists to study how ChatGPT affects users emotionally. This is uncharted technology, and we adults are still learning how to navigate it. Should we really be exposing children to it?
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