Harm to the environment and non-human animals: Can care ethics re-think AI?

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into various domains raises ethical concerns about its impact on environmental sustainability and animal welfare. Recent studies highlight AI systems, programmed to prioritize profit-making, can exacerbate ecological harm and animal wellbeing. Therefore, this thesis aims to argue for potential ways to approach the anthropocentric tendencies of the development of AI's decision-making from an ethical standpoint. I explore how feminist care ethics, emphasizing interdependence, context, and vulnerability, can provide an ethical framework for AI design that mitigates harm rather than reinforcing anthropocentric biases. Building on Gruen's (2015) concept of entangled empathy, I argue that humans are already in an entangled relationship with non-humans and AI should also be understood as part of relational networks that include animals and the environment. Broadening care ethics to include AI raises the question whether AI can care as humans. Building on the social-relational approach for moral status proposed by Mark Coeckelbergh and David Gunkel, this thesis argues that moral agency as well as ability to care and empathy need not rely on ontological properties but should be grounded in appearance of AI within relational contexts. Through this lens, AI systems may ethically engage with the world not because of what they are, but because of how they interact, respond to needs, form social bonds, and participate in practices of care. This thesis aims to argue that integrating care ethics into AI design fosters a more just and ecologically responsible approach, encouraging interdisciplinary dialogue on the ethical interactions across diverse entities.