Technology as Uncharted Territory: Integrative AI Ethics as a Response to the Notion of AI as New Moral Ground

Mussgnug, A. M. (2025).

Philosophy & Technology, 38(106).

Abstract

Recent research illustrates how AI can be developed and deployed in a manner detached from the concrete social context of application. By abstracting from the contexts of AI application, practitioners also disengage from the distinct normative structures that govern them. As a result, AI applications can disregard existing norms, best practices, and regulations with often dire ethical and social consequences. I argue that efforts to promote responsible and ethical AI can inadvertently contribute to and seemingly legitimize this disregard for established contextual norms. Echoing a persistent undercurrent in technology ethics of understanding emerging technologies as uncharted moral territory, certain approaches to AI ethics can promote a notion of AI as a novel and distinct realm for ethical deliberation, norm setting, and virtue cultivation. This narrative of AI as new ethical ground, however, can come at the expense of practitioners, policymakers, and ethicists engaging with already established norms and virtues that were gradually cultivated to promote successful and responsible practice within concrete social contexts. In response, I question the current narrow prioritization in AI ethics of moral innovation over moral preservation. Engaging also with emerging foundation models and AI agents, I advocate for a moderately conservative approach to the ethics of AI that prioritizes the responsible and considered integration of AI within established social contexts and their respective normative structures.

Here are some thoughts:

This article is important to psychologists because it highlights how AI systems, particularly in mental health care, often disregard long-established ethical norms and professional standards. It emphasizes the concept of contextual integrity, which underscores that ethical practices in domains like psychology—such as confidentiality, informed consent, and diagnostic best practices—have evolved over time to protect patients and ensure responsible care. AI systems, especially mental health chatbots and diagnostic tools, frequently fail to uphold these standards, leading to privacy breaches, misdiagnoses, and the erosion of patient trust.

The article warns that AI ethics efforts sometimes treat AI as a new moral territory, detached from existing professional contexts, which can legitimize the disregard for these norms. For psychologists, this raises critical concerns about how AI is integrated into clinical practice, the potential for AI to distort public understanding of mental health, and the need for an integrative AI ethics approach—one that prioritizes the responsible incorporation of AI within existing ethical frameworks rather than treating AI as an isolated ethical domain. Psychologists must therefore be actively involved in shaping AI ethics to ensure that technological advancements support, rather than undermine, the core values and responsibilities of psychological practice.

Privacy and Awareness in Human-AI Relationships

Register, C., Khan, M. A., et al. (2024).

Pre-print.

Abstract

Relationships between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) raise new concerns about privacy. AI raises new threats to privacy as it becomes more like humans in language and appearance, more observant, and more inferentially powerful. As humans increasingly form relationships with AI, we expose ourselves in new ways to technology that we don’t fully understand. Further, if AI is given the capacity for some type of awareness, it may be able to infringe privacy in radically new ways. Drawing from recent empirical work in psychology and from the contextual integrity theory of privacy, this article analyzes some of the ways that human-AI relationships may threaten values that privacy functions to promote. We then propose six tentative policies to guide the design and development of AI products to mitigate these threats to privacy.

A pre-print is here.

Here are some thoughts:

The increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into daily life raises significant concerns regarding privacy, particularly as AI becomes more human-like in language and appearance. As humans form relationships with AI, they expose themselves in new and often unintended ways to technology that remains complex and not fully understood. The potential for AI to possess some form of awareness introduces the possibility of radically new privacy infringements. Drawing from recent empirical research in psychology and the contextual integrity theory of privacy, this analysis explores how these human-AI relationships may threaten the fundamental values that privacy aims to protect.

To address these emerging threats, we propose six tentative policies aimed at guiding the design and development of AI products to better safeguard privacy. Currently, AI systems are already prevalent in our lives, collecting vast amounts of information, and their observational capabilities are expected to expand further. This growing presence of observational AI poses a significant risk to privacy, which is likely to intensify as relationships between humans and AI deepen. The specific implications for privacy ethics remain challenging to predict, influenced by both technological advancements and the nuanced psychology underlying human-AI interactions. While we have outlined various ways in which AI may impact privacy and suggested policies to mitigate potential harms, there is still much work to be done to foresee and adequately address the privacy risks that lie ahead. Balancing the progress of AI with robust privacy protections will be crucial in navigating this evolving landscape.