The Ethical Distinctiveness of Emotion-Oriented Technology: Four Long-Term Issues

Abstract

In this chapter we consider certain long-term ethical issues which are peculiar or special to emotion-oriented technology and which make the topic particularly charged ethically, both for the lay public and for those working in the area. We identify four such issues. First, it is far from clear whether technologies made by humans are conceivably capable of emotionality and, more generally, of phenomenal consciousness. Second, where we are dealing with a technology that simulates emotionality, we have responses that are often far from cool and rational. Third, as discussion of the first two issues will have illustrated, our ethical responses to emotion-oriented technology are often emotionally charged, lending a peculiar reflexivity to our ethical deliberations. This leads to a discussion of the kind of value that such technologies have, and of how they should be ethically treated by humans. Fourth, emotion-oriented technology impinges on many matters of law (such as laws of privacy); we discuss in particular the importance of technology that is used to filter raw emotional data on people for further use.