Against AI welfare: Care practices should prioritize living beings over AI
Abstract In this Comment, we critique the growing “AI welfare” movement and propose a novel guideline, the Precarity Guideline, to determine care entitlement. In contrast to approaches that emphasize potential for suffering, the Precarity Guideline is grounded in empirically identifiable features. The severity of ongoing humanitarian crises, biodiversity loss, and climate change provides additional reasons to prioritize the needs of living beings over machine learning algorithms as candidates for care.
Authors
- Paula Gürtler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7604-3213)
- Mark Coeckelbergh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9576-1002)
- Kathryn Nave (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1227-6237)
- Tillmann Vierkant (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9686-2937)
- Mariel K. Goddu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4969-7948)
- John Dorsch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9974-1487)
- Maximilian Moll (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0270-3039)
- Friderike Spang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3525-0910)
- Petr Urban (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7029-5455)
Institutions
- University of Vienna (AT)
- Universität der Bundeswehr München (DE)
- Centre for European Policy Studies (BE)
- Institute for Futures Studies (SE)
- Futures Group (United States) (US)
- Language Science (South Korea) (KR)
- Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Ethnology (CZ)
- Stanford University (US)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- AI Magazine
- Published
- 2025-08-03
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/aaai.70016
- Primary Topic
- Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme