Can AI be a moral victim? The role of moral patiency and ownership perceptions in ethical judgments of using AI-generated content
The growing use of generative AI raises ethical concerns about authorship and plagiarism. This study examines how people judge the reuse of AI-generated content, focusing on moral patiency and ownership perceptions. In an experiment, participants evaluated two substantively similar manuscripts in which the original source was described as authored by a human, an AI system, or an AI agent with a human-like name. Results showed that copying AI-generated work was judged less unethical, less plagiaristic, and less guilt-inducing than copying human-authored work. Mediation analyses revealed that this leniency stemmed from lower perceptions of AI's capacity to suffer harm (moral patiency) and g...
| Authors | Hyesun Choung, Soojong Kim |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CY |
| Published | 3 April 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 3 April 2026 |
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