The Challenge of Human Dignity in the Era of Autonomous Systems

Autonomous systems make decisions independently or on behalf of the user. This will happen more and more in the future, with the widespread use of AI technologies in the fabric of the society that impacts on the social, economic, and political sphere. Automating services and processes inevitably impacts on the users’ prerogatives and puts at danger their autonomy and privacy. From a societal point of view, it is crucial to understand which is the space of autonomy that a system can exercise without compromising laws and human rights. Following the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies 2018 recommendation, the chapter addresses the problem of preserving the value of human dignity in the context of the digital society, understood as the recognition that a person is worthy of respect in her interaction with autonomous technologies. A person must be able to exercise control on information about herself and on the decisions that autonomous systems make on her behalf.