The Moral Status of Artificial Agents

The fact that decisions made by artificial agents in the real world are often ethically tinged has led many authorities to advocate the development of "artificial moral agents." From the essence of moral agents, as long as the AI can deliberate, has autonomy, and can be responsible for its actions, then the AI can have moral status. It is theoretically and technically reasonable to "embed" morality into AI, and it is necessary, on the one hand, because of the inevitability of its development, on the other hand, because the functions presented by AI development become more and more complex, making it more and more difficult to predict its behavior, and at the same time, to prevent the infringement of human rights. AI agents inevitably need to make autonomous moral decisions, so AI agents may need to be given the same moral status as humans.