- 10.00: Trial lecture: "Natural and artificial social partners: What are the barriers for meaningful human-machine relationships, and how might they be overcome?"
- 12.00: Public defence
Opponents
- First opponent: Professor Monika Betzler, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
- Second opponent: Associate professor Henrik Skaug Sætra, University of Oslo
- Leader of the committee: Associate professor Anders Strand, OsloMet
Supervisor to the candidate is Professor Edmund Henden (OsloMet) and co-supervisor Kjetil Rommetveit (University of Bergen).
Summary
In this thesis, I discuss moral issues that arise when social relationships intersect with social technologies. Drawing on a wide range of perspectives from philosophy, ethics, and empirical observations, I identify and address three key issues in contemporary technology ethics.
Articles
In the first article, I discuss the nature and value of “remote collegial relationships”, meaning relationships between colleagues who only interact on social media. I argue that we do not have a clear philosophical understanding of what such relationships are, and even less about what will happen to them as people begin to work remotely. By drawing on the literature on friendship, collegial relationships, and so-called “online friendship”, I provide an original account of what collegial relationships are and claim that remote work will negatively impact what I call “collegial friendships”.
In the second article, I discuss the moral implications of Personal AI, a type of AI companion engineered to replicate the emotional attitudes of the user. I distinguish Personal AI from other types of AI companions and argue that it generates unique moral issues related to the role of emotions in companionships. Specifically, I argue that the emotional mirroring of Personal AI leads to what I call “emotional bubbles”, which are problematic because they undermine the way moral values – in particular shared moral values – are disclosed by our emotions.
In the third article, I use the emergence of surveillance culture – a culture where people observe one another without consent – as a starting point for interrogating received conceptions about the value of privacy. Two common views suggest that privacy is valuable because it is necessary for autonomy and diverse social relationships, yet, this does not appear to hold true for those who participate in surveillance culture. I argue that these common views fail because they do not consider the relevance of abuse concerns for explaining why privacy is a condition for autonomy and diverse social relationships.
The articles are written in an accessible language meant to appeal to both philosophers and non-philosophers.
