The use of AI is actively killing empathy, care-giving, and morality—destroying the social and moral foundations of civil society

We ask Amazon Alexa or Apple Siri for recommendations on music, we request help from chatbots, or we play with robotic toys. Robots and other smart machines—broadly referred to as the class of technological artifacts capable of autonomous decision and action without direct human instruction and interference—are increasingly interwoven into the social fabric of our society with the area and scope of their application continuing to expand. As we become accustomed to interacting through and with robots, we also begin to supplement or replace existing human–human interactions with human–machine interactions. The introduction of robots and smart machines into our lives can significantly alter the existing human–human interactions (and relationship), and this shift to human–machine interaction can be for better or worse. Philosophers and roboticists have already carefully scrutinized the potential social, ethical, and legal issues raised by the supplement and replacement of humans by robots and smart machines in various aspects of our lives [1], e.g., in friendship (e.g., [2]) and intimate relationship (e.g., [3]), in classroom (e.g., [4]), and at home and at work (e.g., [5]), and their aim is to examine whether the design and use of robots and smart machines are ethically permissible and/or conducive to the good life. These analyses, of course, are essential in our decisions on whether or not to accept the (use of) robots. They are also crucial in informing us of how to design and use machines ethically. Yet, as Sherry Turkle notes in “Alone Together” [6], there is a related but more fundamental philosophical issue concerning the impacts of interaction with machines on our self-constitution, i.e., how interaction with machines change who we are? This article aims to discuss the impacts of the shift from human–human interaction to human–machine interaction on one facet of our self-constitution, i.e., morality. More specifically, it sets out to explore whether and how the shift to human–machine interaction can affect our moral cultivation. To illustrate this with an example, it has been suggested that people—and, in particular, children—could become rude as they become accustomed to voice-interactive AI digital assistants, e.g., Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, etc. For the AI digital assistants will give people what they want regardless of their attitudes and manners, the claim is that they promote a false sense of deservedness that creeps into people’s everyday social interaction, thereby making the users rude [7–9]. The discussion of voice-interactive AI digital assistants offers a compelling case for studying the potential negative impacts of the shift to human–machine interaction on our moral cultivation. I shall structure the article around what Shannon Vallor calls technology-driven moral deskilling [10], i.e., the phenomenon of technology negatively affecting individual moral cultivation, and shall attempt to offer a Confucian response to the problem. In the next section, I first elaborate in more detail Vallor’s idea of technology-driven moral deskilling. I then discuss three paradigms to virtue acquisition identified by Nancy E. Snow, i.e., the “folk” paradigm, the skill-and-expertise paradigm, and the Confucian paradigm, and show how the Confucian paradigm can help us to respond to technology-driven moral deskilling. Finally, I introduce the idea of Confucian rituals (li) and argue for a ritualizing of machines as an answer to technology-driven moral deskilling. In supplementing or replacing humans, robots and smart machines change how we (inter)act and with whom we (inter)act, e.g., people no longer ask their family or friends for recommendations but rely on their AI digital assistants, they request help not from technicians but from chatbots, and they do not play with neighbors but with robotic or AI partners. By relegating and eliminating the needs of humans in interaction and relationships, robots and smart machines can transform and disrupt many of the existing human practices that are primarily human-based and human-oriented, e.g., kinship and friendship, help-seeking, and play. In light of the transformation and disruption brought by new technology, Vallor argues that “moral skills appears just as vulnerable to disruption or devaluation by technology-driven shifts in human practices . . . because moral skills are typically acquired in specific practices which, under the right conditions and with sufficient opportunity for repetition, foster the cultivation of practical wisdom and moral habituation that jointly constitute genuine virtue” [10] (p. 109). She points out that as human practices are being transformed or disrupted, they may not afford individuals the same chance to acquire moral skills and virtues because the new practices may not provide the right conditions or sufficient opportunity to practice. Accordingly, robots and smart machines may lead to the diminishing of moral skills, and thus the problem of technology-driven moral deskilling. Vallor’s argument rests on the skill model of virtue (see [11–14]), in which the acquisition of virtues is structurally similar to the acquisition of practical skills.1 From this perspective, it is essential for individuals to practice their moral skills and receive appropriate feedback to become morally skillful, which, in turn, enable them to achieve the relevant virtues. In other words, if the technology offers fewer opportunities for individuals to exercise their moral skills, or if the technology does not enable them to receive appropriate feedback, then users of this technology risk being morally deskilled. One of the examples Vallor uses to concretize the case of technology-driven moral deskilling is ‘robot caregivers’ [10] (pp. 119–121).2 She points out that caring, understood as active provision of support to people who are in need, is a type of skill. For example, for nurses and caregivers to care well, both knowledge and know-how of caring are necessary. When nurses and caretakers do not have suitable knowledge, they will not know what to do to help their patients, and thereby fail to care; but, even if they know what to do, they still have to know how to do it in a way that is comforting and/or satisfactory to their patients. Moreover, their proficiency of care know-how can only be accumulated through experience with their patients [15]. Following Vallor, as we accept caring involves a set of moral skills, such as conversation, body contact and empathizing with patients, the implementation of robot caregivers could lead to moral deskilling: When robot caregivers become as effective and/or welcoming as human caregivers, they may devalue human care and make care know-how obsolete. More importantly, the implementation of robot caregivers may reduce and remove the need of human care, which, at the same time, reduces and removes the opportunity for humans to exercise care and acquire the relevant virtues.