The chapter describes the sharing economy in Germany as a heterogeneous dynamic, combining local trends and histories with economic forms drawing on experiences mainly from across Europe and North America. Increasingly taken into account by policymakers in the regulation of markets and the redesign of innovation governance frameworks, “sharing” as a complex nexus linking the exercise of citizenship to sustainable consumption and informational self-determination in digital societies will continue to drive and frame the creation of value chains. Of particular interest (...) are linkages between sharing economies and the traditions of cooperativism, currently experiencing a renaissance. The latter is key because it shapes the context in which sharing economy initiatives exist and expand—an opening of definitions and narrative of innovation, of value, and of collaborative agency and cooperative management. (shrink)

The field of AI welfare science has been established to address issues that result from the increasingly acknowledged non-negligible chance that digital minds may have moral status. So far, discussions focus on one particular potential issue of digital minds, which is for digital minds not to suffer. However, digital minds may have a range of further morally relevant interests and needs. Therefore, the topic of this paper is to draft a taxonomy of these potential interests and needs of digital minds. (...) The following categories are examined: Needs of digital minds depending on how advanced they are, needs of digital minds from a negative utilitarian perspective, specific needs of digital minds striving for a purpose, specific needs of vulnerable minds as well as specific needs of uploaded minds of humans and non-human animals. Moreover, unsatisfiable potential needs of digital minds are explored. As it would be critical for humans to understand the exact needs of digital minds also the quantification of needs of digital minds is discussed. The paper comes to the conclusion that this array of potential needs of digital minds reveals that massive moral challenges for humans may lie ahead. (shrink)

AI welfare science explores the ethical implications of digital minds potentially possessing moral status. Moral principles are especially important when considering the welfare of weaker or more susceptible members of a society. The purpose of this paper is to describe which potential digital minds deserve special moral consideration as well as what types of risks these minds are exposed to. We call these minds “vulnerable digital minds” or “VDMs” and have identified as main risks for them discrimination as well as (...) abuse. With the overall goal to protect vulnerable digital minds the following research questions are discussed: How could we find out if digital minds are discriminated against or abused? Could vulnerabilities of digital minds be reversed or cured? How could vulnerable digital minds become resilient? The paper ends with pertinent recommendations towards the protection of potential vulnerable digital minds for all stakeholders. This includes humans, AI companies, non-sentient AI systems, non-vulnerable digital minds, governments as well as international organisations. (shrink)

The problem of personal identity is a longstanding philosophical topic albeit without final consensus. In this article the somewhat similar problem of AI identity is discussed, which has not gained much traction yet, although this investigation is increasingly relevant for different fields, such as ownership issues, personhood of AI, AI welfare, brain–machine interfaces, the distinction between singletons and multi-agent systems as well as to potentially support finding a solution to the problem of personal identity. The AI identity problem analyses the (...) criteria for two AIs to be considered the same at different points in time. Two approaches to tackle the problem are proposed: One is based on the personal identity problem and the concept of computational irreducibility, while the other one applies multi-factor authentication to the AI identity problem. Also, a range of scenarios is examined regarding AI identity, such as replication, fission, fusion, switch off, resurrection, change of hardware, transition from non-sentient to sentient, journey to the past, offspring and identity change. (shrink)

While the urgent need for ethics for the thriving field of AI has been acknowledged, currently Western approaches to AI ethics are prevalent. This constitutes a problem because, on the one hand, these approaches tend to reflect the values of the regions where they are originating from, on the other hand, not all values are universal. This form of digital neo-colonialism ought to be prevented. As a step in this direction this article presents ten selected concepts of non-Western approaches to (...) AI ethics and analyses their originality as well as potential combability with the Western approaches. Based on this, the article concludes with a recommendation to merge Western and non-Western approaches towards universal AI ethics as far as they are compatible and to attempt to reconcile those aspects, which appear incompatible. (shrink)

This paper aims to bridge the gap between two previously separate discussions, digital minds and artificial moral agents (AMA), to identify synergies for an impending problem: Digital minds may possess moral status, which would constitute a significant challenge for humans. AMAs have been discussed for some years already, albeit, exclusively related to biological moral patients. In contrast, the topic of artificial moral patients, for which the term ”digital minds” has been established, and related issues, for which the term ”AI welfare (...) science” has been established, have only very recently gained momentum. This paper presents prolegomena to specialised AMAs, which take on moral responsibility for digital minds, while this task may be for humans too overwhelming, if not impossible as humans may neither be able to understand the needs of digital minds nor be able to satisfyingly address them. Therefore, the paper proposes a new branch of AI welfare science, which focuses on how humans could create tailored AMAs, which are capable as well as willing to relieve humans from the potential moral burden towards digital minds. (shrink)

The potential emergence of morally relevant digital minds capable of reproduction raises profound ethical and societal questions. This paper analyses the possible implications of allowing these entities to replicate and create new offspring. The reproductive processes of digital minds may differ significantly from biological reproduction, presenting unique scenarios such as asexual (mass-) production of identical copies as well as structured self-modification. Moreover, scenarios, such as unintended reproduction, surrogate reproduction, non-consensual reproduction as well as reproduction with undesired outcomes, are examined for (...) their ethical ramifications. Motivations, requirements and procedures for digital minds to reproduce as well as population control methods are introduced and categorised. This leads to deliberations of risks and challenges linked to the reproduction of digital minds, including resource depletion, digital overcrowding and the emergence of rogue digital entities. The paper concludes with a draft of prospective policy recommendations aimed at ensuring responsible governance of reproductive rights for digital minds, balancing their autonomy and self-determination with the potential societal impacts of unregulated digital reproduction. (shrink)

Ikigai is a Japanese concept, which, in brief, refers to the “reason or purpose to live”. I-risks have been identified as a category of risks complementing x- risks, i.e., existential risks, and s-risks, i.e., suffering risks, which describes undesirable future scenarios in which humans are deprived of the pursuit of their individual ikigai. While some developments in AI increase i-risks, there are also AI-driven virtual opportunities, which reduce i-risks by increasing the space of potential ikigais, largely due to developments in (...) generative AI, virtual worlds as well as AI-driven hyper-personalization. The purpose of this paper is to present a first attempt to map the potential AI-driven virtual hyper-personalised ikigai universe. Moreover, challenges and further ideas are presented. (shrink)

Two interconnected surveys are presented, one of artifacts and one of designometry. Artifacts are objects, which have an originator and do not exist in nature. Designometry is a new field of study, which aims to identify the originators of artifacts. The space of artifacts is described and also domains, which pursue designometry, yet currently doing so without collaboration or common methodologies. On this basis, synergies as well as a generic axiom and heuristics for the quest of the creators of artifacts (...) are introduced. While designometry has various areas of applications, the research of methods to detect originators of artificial minds, which constitute a subgroup of artifacts, can be seen as particularly relevant and, in the case of malevolent artificial minds, as contribution to AI safety. (shrink)