ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS OF CARE: A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN-TECHNOLOGY RELATIONS

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a bigger part of our everyday lives and has begun to play major roles associated with human lives, especially in care-giving and emotional support. From a feminist perspective, this work looks at how love, care, and AI intersect in our daily relationships. Since AI is now taking on tasks that require empathy and compassion, it raises important questions about emotional labor, ethical responsibility, and how we connect with technology and the place of humans in all these. The goal of this research is to show how the ethics of care, a moral approach that highlights empathy, connection, and the value relationships can offer a deeper and more compassionate way to design and use AI. The study fills an important gap within the parameters of AI ethics, which often focuses on rules and outcomes while ignoring the emotional and relational aspects of human-technology interactions. This paper distinguishes itself by focusing on the relational and emotion dimensions of human- technology relations. To address this, the research employs Carol Gilligan's theory on care and context in moral reflection. The study uses critical and analytical methods of inquiry. The findings show that when AI development incorporates the ethics of care, the result is more compassionate and socially responsible technology. The study identifies key principles for ethical AI design, such as mutual responsiveness, sensitivity to context, and recognizing emotional labor. It concludes that a care-centered approach to AI ethics not only makes technology more accountable but also challenges patriarchal assumptions that often shape both tech design and mainstream ethical theories.

Open Full Text (PDF)