Technology, liberty, and guardrails
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43681_2024_625_ReferencePDF.pdf
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205.33 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
aa7fe43927ff1ccb23d8ca28ec25d781
Author(s)
Mills, Kevin
Date Issued
December 21, 2024
Journal
AI and Ethics
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Citation
Mills, K. Technology, liberty, and guardrails. AI Ethics 5, 39–46 (2025).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Technology companies are increasingly being asked to take responsibility for the technologies they create. Many of them are rising to the challenge. One way they do this is by implementing “guardrails”: restrictions on functionality that prevent people from misusing their technologies (per some standard of misuse). While there can be excellent reasons for implementing guardrails (and doing so is sometimes morally obligatory), I argue that the unrestricted authority to implement guardrails is incompatible with proper respect for user freedom, and is not something we should welcome. I argue instead that guardrails should be implemented for only two reasons: to prevent accidental misuse of the technology, and as a proportionate means of preventing people from using the technology to violate other people’s rights. If I’m right, then we may have to get more comfortable with developers releasing technologies that can, and to some extent inevitably will, be misused; people using technologies in ways we disagree with is one of the costs of liberty, but it is a cost we have excellent reasons to bear.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-024-00625-0
