PhD Studentship: AI, Responsible Agency & Vulnerability: Addressing the Vulnerability Gap

One of the main research results of the TAS project Making Systems Answer is the diagnosis of a "vulnerability gap" (Vallor/Vierkant under review). The claim is that responsibility practices which evolved to regulate responsible behaviour between humans cannot easily be applied to complex socio technical systems that contain AI agents, because such systems do not show vulnerabilities to the moral emotions which are an essential part of our moral practices.

The AI itself obviously is not vulnerable to such emotions and in the complex social webs that enable AI agency it is often impossible to identify an individual or group that stands in the right relationship to the behaviour of the technical system to make them an apt target of moral emotions.

But while the vulnerability gap provides a plausible diagnosis of the problem there is so far no account of appropriate ways of addressing it.

Developing this positive picture is the remit of this PhD project. Obviously, there is already a large literature on responsibility gaps in general and how to deal with them, but the vulnerability gap recentres this debate and opens up a new and promising route for how to deal with them. The project requires on the one hand a deep dive into literature on collective and corporate responsibility and how this can inform and be informed by the insights gleaned from the work on the vulnerability gap. On the other hand, the project will use the notion of answerability as developed by the making systems answer group as its starting point. Answerability here aims to provide an adequate response to responsibility gaps in general and the vulnerability gap in particular by utilising an agency cultivation approach (Vargas/Mc Geer) of responsibility practices.

The award includes:

• 4 years stipend at UKRI rates (estimated to be in the region of £18,622 for 2024/25);
• tuition fees;
• annual research support budget of £2,000.

For more information on supervision, eligibility and the application process, please follow the link below:

NEW: AI, Responsible Agency & Vulnerability: Addressing the Vulnerability Gap – PhD Studentship | The University of Edinburgh

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