Responsibility Gaps and Technology: Old Wine in New Bottles?

Abstract

Recent work in philosophy of technology has come to bear on the question of responsibility gaps. Some authors argue that the increase in the autonomous capabilities of decision‐making systems makes it impossible to properly attribute responsibility for AI‐based outcomes. In this article we argue that one important, and often neglected, feature of recent debates on responsibility gaps is how this debate maps on to old debates in responsibility theory. More specifically, we suggest that one of the key questions that is still at issue is the significance of the reactive attitudes, and how these ought to feature in our theorizing about responsibility. We will therefore provide a new descriptive categorization of different perspectives with respect to responsibility gaps. Such reflection can provide analytical clarity about what is at stake between the various interlocutors in this debate. The main upshot of our account is the articulation of a way to frame this ‘new’ debate by drawing on the rich intellectual history of ‘old’ concepts. By regarding the question of responsibility gaps as being concerned with questions of metaphysical priority, we see that the problem of these gaps lies not in any advanced technology, but rather in how we think about responsibility.