When intelligent systems cause harm, who carries the blame?
To talk about moral agency is to ask: who can be held accountable for their actions? In humans, the answer feels intuitive. Those who act with awareness, intention, and choice are responsible for what they do. But when AI enters the picture, that intuition begins to fray.
AI systems don’t intend harm. They don’t feel guilt or weigh values in the way we do. And yet, they increasingly make decisions that affect lives, whether hiring someone, denying a loan, flagging suspicious behaviour, even influencing court decisions. These aren’t science fiction stories. They’re part of everyday systems that shape human opportunity, freedom, and wellbeing.
So, when things go wrong, who, or what, is to blame?
This question sits at the heart of ethical discussions around artificial intelligence. It’s not just philosophical. It’s practical, legal, and deeply human. Because behind every AI system is a chain of decisions. But does that mean responsibility stays with the creators forever? Or should we begin thinking differently about how accountability works in a world of distributed intelligence?
What Is Moral Agency?
Moral agency is the capacity to be held responsible for one’s actions. It involves more than action. It implies intention, awareness, and the ability to choose between right and wrong. Traditionally, moral agents are conscious beings capable of understanding ethical principles and adjusting their behaviour accordingly.
It’s the reason we don’t hold children, animals, or inanimate objects morally accountable in the same way we do adults. And it’s the reason we currently treat AI as a tool, not a moral actor.
But what happens when the tool becomes complex, adaptive, and autonomous?
Why This Matters for AI
Most AI systems today don’t possess intent or self-awareness. They process data, follow rules, optimise outcomes. They don’t “want” anything. But they can still cause harm, disproportionately affecting marginalised groups, reinforcing historical injustice, or making life-altering decisions based on opaque criteria.
This brings us to the ethical crux:
If no human directly made the harmful choice, can anyone be held responsible?
If not, we risk creating a moral vacuum, a space where harm occurs, but no one is answerable.
Can AI Be a Moral Agent?
Let’s break it down.
To be a moral agent, a being must typically:
- Understand the moral significance of actions
- Be capable of making intentional choices
- Have some degree of autonomy and foresight
- Be aware of consequences, both to others and oneself
AI systems, even the most advanced, do not meet these criteria. They don’t understand meaning, feel obligation, or deliberate morally. They don’t possess consciousness, empathy, or a self.
Yet they do act. And those actions have consequences.
Consider a hiring algorithm that systematically disadvantages candidates with certain ethnic names. Or a self-driving car that harms a pedestrian due to a flawed decision-making model. These outcomes are not the result of malevolence, but they are the result of systems operating without full human oversight.
So while AI might not be a moral agent, it still raises moral questions.
If Not the Machine, Then Who?
When AI causes harm, where does responsibility land?
- The developers, who wrote the code or selected the training data?
- The companies, who chose to deploy the system without fully testing its fairness or robustness?
- The users, who relied on the tool without understanding its limits?
- The regulators, who failed to anticipate the risks?
Sometimes, all of the above.
But what makes this complex is the diffusion of responsibility. AI systems are often built by teams across countries, trained on open datasets, and used in unintended ways. In such cases, blame becomes diluted, easy to pass and difficult to claim.
And when responsibility is diluted, accountability suffers. Systems evolve faster than laws, and technical errors become ethical grey zones.
Could AI Be Treated As If It Were a Moral Agent?
Some propose that high-level autonomous systems might need to be treated as if they possess moral agency. Not because they truly understand ethics, but because holding them accountable might serve a functional purpose.
Think of corporations: they are legal persons, though not conscious beings. We hold them liable to ensure ethical conduct and protect public interest.
Could AI, at least in some scenarios, be granted a similar kind of functional moral status?
This idea is controversial. On one hand, it creates a path for legal accountability. On the other, it risks letting the humans off the hook, blaming the machine while the architects remain invisible.
Designing for Responsibility
Even if AI lacks moral agency, we can still design systems that act responsibly, or at least, that allow responsibility to be traced.
This means:
- Transparent design: so decision-making can be audited
- Ethical constraints: built into the model’s goals
- Human-in-the-loop systems: to keep meaningful oversight
- Refusal protocols: where AI can flag or pause ethically problematic actions
Rather than asking if AI can be moral, we might ask: can it help us act more morally? Can we build systems that amplify our ethics, not just our efficiency?
Conclusion: Responsibility in a Non-Human Age
AI isn’t a villain. But it’s not innocent, either.
It’s a tool shaped by human values, decisions, and oversights, often deployed without enough reflection on its ethical weight. And when those tools go wrong, it’s not enough to shrug and say “the algorithm did it.”
In the absence of AI moral agency, human moral agency becomes more important, not less.
If we want a future where AI serves us well, we need more than better code. We need clearer lines of accountability, deeper reflection on responsibility, and a renewed understanding of what it means to act with intention, even when the actions are taken by a machine.