A research project into the moral status of AI entities.

My research project at King’s College London aims to provide an original contribution to the ethics of AI by showing that out best current theories of moral status theories may, surprisingly, soon require us to grant a degree of moral parity between humans and near-future advanced AI systems.

Modern AI systems, especially LLMs such as Chat-GPT, are already capable of extraordinary feats of knowledge gathering, problem-solving, reasoning and arguably, understanding. These include complex concepts that were until recently the preserve of human minds. However, almost no-one believes that AI systems are deserving of levels of moral status similar to humans, or even animals. A creature has moral status when it counts for something, in its own right. Yet, when we investigate what grounds moral status, the belief that AI systems could never have such status seems open to challenge. This research project considers what grounds moral status; identifies what conditions in an entity need to obtain for moral status to be owed; and asks whether a future AI system could obtain those conditions. It concludes that, if certain particular conditions obtain, we might owe these AI entities a degree of moral status. If my conclusion can be adequately defended, the consequences of such a state of affairs should probably be considered before such morally relevant AI entities are brought into being.

Working Papers

A selection of published papers and working documents are below.

Could machines have moral status?

My dissertation (Northeastern, 2025) argues that Kagan's hierarchical theory of moral status outperforms the leading competing theories, and that accepting this theory would permit, although not necessarily entail, that advanced AI machines could deserve a degree of moral status. Copies are available on request.