Ethical Reflections on Persuasive Technology

Persuasive technology arose as a new kind of interdisciplinary field of arts and science. Techniques and technologies of persuasion traditionally involved oral or written language, be it for the presentation of arguments or for rhetorical strategies and seductive slogans. In contrast, the term now refers to a human-computer interaction technology that has the ability to influence or even to change people’s perceptions, attitudes, or behaviors. There is a wide range of applications with significant social impact. However, the novelty, concealment, polymorphism, and other characteristics of AI products with persuasive functions will conceal their intentions, limit the free choice of their users, put their users in a disadvantaged position, and might even prove to be addictive. In order to avoid or mitigate these problems, it is necessary to conduct an ethical examination of the development and application of persuasive technology. At the same time, the indeterminacy or uncertainty of data-driven algorithmic systems and the multiple moral agents associated with computing products have made traditional assessments difficult. We can’t cope with these challenges, until we have gone beyond the dichotomy between theoretical and applied ethics, expanding the semantic and pragmatic scope of the concept of responsibility. Regarding the ethics of technology we need to effect a shift from an emphasis on the responsibility for passively conceived users to their actively taking responsibility, and establish a new conceptual framework of ethics for the human future.