The ethics of AI automation: the importance of treating like cases alike

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have raised the concern that several jobs will soon be automated. Many argue this forthcoming AI automation is morally problematic. We disagree. In this paper we argue that recent criticisms of AI automation are all subject to the same flaw: they fail to treat like cases alike. To demonstrate this, we show that criticisms of AI automation apply to past forms of automation that most think were overwhelmingly positive, such as the automation of agriculture. To treat like cases alike, critics of forthcoming AI automation must be willing to extend their proposed policies to all forms of automation that share AI’s alleged moral shortcomings. Most policies proposed by critics of AI automation fail to clear this hurdle.

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