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I’m Afraid HAL Can’t Do That: Your Smart Home Is Not That Kind of Existential Threat
Resource type
Book Section
Authors/contributors
- Zebrowski, Robin L. (Author)
- Kornyshova, Elena (Editor)
- Deneckère, Rébecca (Editor)
- Brinkkemper, Sjaak (Editor)
Title
I’m Afraid HAL Can’t Do That: Your Smart Home Is Not That Kind of Existential Threat
Abstract
This chapter starts at the cliché of the smart home that has gone rogue and introduces the question of whether these integrated, distributed systems can have ethical frameworks like human ethics that could prevent the science fictional trope of the evil, sentient house. I argue that such smart systems are not a threat on their own, because these kinds of integrated, distributed systems are not the kind of things that could be conscious, a precondition for having ethics like ours (and ethics like ours enable the possibility of being the kinds of things that could be evil). To make these arguments, I look to the history of AI/artificial consciousness and 4e cognition, concluding with the idea that our human ethics as designers and consumers of these systems is the real ethical concern with smart life systems.
Book Title
Smart Life and Smart Life Engineering: Current State and Future Vision
Place
Cham
Publisher
Springer Nature Switzerland
Date
2025
Pages
113-129
Language
en
ISBN
978-3-031-75887-4
Short Title
I’m Afraid HAL Can’t Do That
Accessed
4/25/25, 11:22 AM
Library Catalog
Springer Link
Extra
Citation
Zebrowski, R. L. (2025). I’m Afraid HAL Can’t Do That: Your Smart Home Is Not That Kind of Existential Threat. In E. Kornyshova, R. Deneckère, & S. Brinkkemper (Eds.), Smart Life and Smart Life Engineering: Current State and Future Vision (pp. 113–129). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75887-4_6
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