Nudging Using Autonomous Agents: Risks and Ethical Considerations

TL;DR

This paper examines the ethics and risks of nudging through autonomous agents, arguing against a single normative approach in favor of a risk-driven, transparent questions-and-answers framework. It surveys technology-mediated nudging, including digital nudging and HyperNudge concepts, and identifies key cognitive biases that nudges may target. AIDA (AI-driven Decision Architectures) is proposed as a framework for autonomous, self-adaptive nudges, accompanied by a lifecycle of requirements, design, deployment, and evaluation anchored in four ethical principles: Beneficence, Autonomy, Justice, and Transparency. A fictional electronic-wallet use case illustrates practical ethical questions, and the authors call for socio-technical evaluation and ongoing monitoring to ensure trustworthy, user-centered nudging. The work contributes a practical, risk-aware methodology to guide the development of nudging-enabled autonomous systems with an emphasis on user autonomy and accountability.

Abstract

This position paper briefly discusses nudging, its use by autonomous agents, potential risks and ethical considerations while creating such systems. Instead of taking a normative approach, which guides all situations, the paper proposes a risk-driven questions-and-answer approach. The paper takes the position that this is a pragmatic method, that is transparent about beneficial intentions, foreseeable risks, and mitigations. Given the uncertainty in AI and autonomous agent capabilities, we believe that such pragmatic methods offer a plausibly safe path, without sacrificing flexibility in domain and technology.