Marie Theresa O’Connor recently published an article in Minds and Machines entitled “In the Craftsman’s Garden: AI, Alan Turing, and Stanley Cavell.” This article focuses on rising skepticism about the nature of so-called black box AI, meaning AI whose processes are unknown even to their creators, and takes up the larger question of how we should respond to a speaker when we’re unsure about what’s inside. When is it okay, for instance, to understand the phrases “please stop” or “please respect my boundaries” as meaning something other than what those phrases ordinarily mean and what makes it so? If we ignore denials of consent, or put them in scare quotes, we should have a good reason.

O’Connor’s article focuses on two thinkers, Stanley Cavell and Alan Turing, whose work suggests that there may not be a good reason to ignore denials of consent by machines that make us wonder what’s inside.  Instead, “I’m not sure” may be a more appropriate answer, even if the implications of that answer may feel embarrassing to adopt in practice.