How Virtuous Can Artificial Intelligence Become? Exploring Artificial Moral Advisor in Light of the Thomistic Idea of Virtue

Abstract

Is artificial intelligence (AI) virtuous? Can AI become as virtuous as humans? This article is intended to explore these questions with a focus on artificial moral advisor (AMA). AMA is a proposal for the future application of AI to human moral life. Hence, this article will be dedicated to the theoretical analysis of the issues surrounding AMA. Socratic AMA will be the specific object of study. To this end, this article will examine whether or not the Socratic AMA can enhance human virtuous life through exploration of Thomas Aquinas's theology of virtue. It will argue that the Socratic AMA is not as virtuous as humans insofar as it lacks both the subject and ultimate end of virtue and is characterized as measurable. Nevertheless, the Socratic AMA can be considered to be embedded with delegated virtues and is expected to assist humans in their cultivation of virtue in certain contexts by reason of both its capacity to gather voluminous information and its tremendous processing power.