Miriam Gorr: The Possibility and Moral Significance of Curious AI

Invitation.pdf

Abstract

The Possibility and Moral Significance of Curious AI

Debates about the moral status of AI systems typically proceed by applying established criteria — such as sentience, desires, or rationality — to these novel technologies. This talk challenges the assumption that the traditional list of grounds for moral status is exhaustive. I argue that curiosity constitutes an independent and previously overlooked basis for moral status—meaning that an entity can be a moral status holder in virtue of being curious. Beyond the theoretical claim, I suggest that curiosity may be a particularly plausible pathway through which AI systems could come to acquire moral status. Unlike many of the more traditional criteria, curiosity aligns naturally with their core design: AI systems are built as epistemic tools, intended to assist humans in generating knowledge and making new discoveries. The emergence of curiosity in such systems would therefore not only be continuous with their intended functionality, but could, as I will demonstrate, also give rise to moral obligations towards them.