Humanlike robots and digital humans are both fun and useful in many situations. But the more we interact with technology with human traits, the more we believe it to possess real human characteristics like consciousness and personality. As a new breed of artificial beings enters society on a large scale, many of us will start believing they deserve moral consideration and perhaps even rights.
In this entertaining and humorously written book, Thomas Telving argues that even though the above scenario is close to inevitable, we should still do all we can to avoid it. Presenting us with thought-provoking future scenarios, state of the art scientific research, and engaging philosophical reflections, he shows us how to avoid some of the scariest pitfalls of human-like technology.
“In conclusion, Killing Sophia by Thomas Telving is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the human moral treatment of robots. It is accessible, well written, and provides good coverage of several important and hotly debated issues at the intersection of robotics and our moral decision making. In addition, it puts forward an interesting philosophical argument concerning our future with robots that deserves further consideration—something that I hope has been conveyed in this review. I think that both scholars and laypeople alike will be able to take something from Killing Sophia."
— Kęstutis Mosakas, AI Ethics (2023).
“The rapid development in (embodied) artificial intelligence is all but certain to change our lives in the coming years. Using a philosophical framework, Thomas Telving convincingly presents a number of pitfalls following a large increase in human-robot interaction. He joins the important roboethic debate on what future we want to live in, and what it takes for humanity to keep the upper hand in shaping it.”
— Tobias Larsen, PhD in Computational Neuroscience from the University of Bristol and senior data scientist at Oviva AG
“Artificial intelligence and advanced robots are increasingly used in science and society, and in many ways they outperform human capabilities. An important question is how our moral and legal stance towards robots will develop when their human likeness increases. In this entertaining new book Thomas Telving takes us through possible scenarios seen in a philosophical perspective. Enlightening, thought-provoking and highly recommended.”
— Jacob J. K. Kirkensgaard, PhD, Associate Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
Thomas Telving holds an MA in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Southern Denmark. He is the author of several articles on the ethics of artificial intelligence and robotics and frequently appears as a speaker on the same topics.
