The Moral Status of Artificial Intelligence: Exploring Users’ Anticipatory Ethics in the Controversy Regarding LaMDA’s Sentience

Several approaches in the area of technological developments have given increased importance to technologies not yet implemented but frequently discussed within users’ social groups. Drawing on qualitative content analysis based on tweets and comments related to Google’s AI product LaMDA from the last six months (N=317), we discuss Brey’s anticipatory ethics, i.e. people’s ways of sensemaking related to the potential ethical consequences of tech product designs and policies of use. We adopt the theoretical approach of the “technomoral scenario”, which is focused on anticipations of the potential consequences regarding the unimplemented technologies, and we study users’ “interpretive flexibility”, which has the role of unifying divergent opinions, when it comes to technological developments. We conclude that the anticipatory ethics regarding New and Emerging Technologies takes shape around a coherent framework of opinions and values related to technological controversies.