Luciano Floridi
Artificial Companions and their Philosophical Challenges

The technology to develop artificial companions (AC) is largely available, and the question is "when" rather than "whether" they will become commodities. Of course, the difficulties are still formidable, but they are not insurmountable. On the contrary, they seem rather well-understood, and the path from theoretical problems to technical solutions looks steep but climbable. The article concentrates not on the technological challenges, which are important, but on some philosophical issues that a growing population of AC will make increasingly pressing.

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Online version of the article on the Polish website