Abstract

There is a growing need to ensure that autonomous artificially intelligent (AI) systems are capable of behaving ethically, and I argue that virtue ethics, but in particular the normative theory of aretaic-exemplarism, can play a central role in cultivating the ethical behavior of machines. When coupled with the value inherent in and commonplace practice of training AI systems using simulated environments, it may be possible to raise ethical machines by training them to imitate simulated exemplars of moral excellence, like a digital Jesus or virtual Confucius. This bottom-up approach to implementing machine ethics has advantages over top-down approaches and is similarly not beset by some of the challenges that arise when attempting to use real people as the imitable training set. In short, machines may be able to imitate simulated moral exemplars and thereby exhibit virtuous behavior themselves.