Samenvatting

Technology is responsible for major systemic changes within the global financial sector. This sector has already developed into a comprehensive network of mutually connected people and computers. Algorithms play a crucial role within this network. An algorithm is in essence merely a set of instructions developed by one or more people with the intention of having these instructions performed by a machine such as a computer in order to realize an ideal result. As part of a development in which we as human beings have ever higher expectations of algorithms and these algorithms become more autonomous in their actions, we cannot avoid including possibilities in these algorithms that enable ethical or moral considerations. To develop this ethical or moral consideration, we need a kind of ethical framework that can be used for constructing these algorithms. With the development of such a framework we can start to think about what we as human beings consider to be a moral action executed by algorithms that support actions and decisions of interconnected and self-organizing machines. This chapter explores an ethical framework for interconnected and self-organizing moral machines.