Free Will, Agency, and Responsibility

If AI makes decisions, who is responsible? This sub-article expands Section 1.3 of Philosophy.

Agency and Autonomy

• Agency: the capacity to act toward goals.
• Increasingly autonomous systems (vehicles, medical AI, weapons) raise accountability questions.

Responsibility

• Legal and moral responsibility traditionally requires intention and knowledge.
• AI systems lack intent; responsibility falls to designers, operators, and institutions.
• Moral machines: how should automated systems weigh lives and trade-offs?

Free Will

• If AI is deterministic, can it “choose”? Philosophical debates transfer to machines.
• In practice, we assign responsibility through rules, oversight, and liability.

Why It Matters

As AI acts in the world, societies need frameworks for blame, compensation, and control.

Sources

• Floridi, L. & Sanders, J. (2004). On the Morality of Artificial Agents.
• Matthias, A. (2004). The responsibility of an artificial agent.

Back to Philosophy.