Artificial Companions and their philosophical challenges

The technology for Artificial Companions is already largely available, and the question is when rather than whether ACs will become commodities (Benyon and Mival (2007). The difficulties are still formidable, but they are not insurmountable. On the contrary, they seem rather well-understood, and the path from theoretical problems to technical solutions looks steep but climbable. cIn the following pages, I wish to concentrate not on the technological challenges, which are important, but on some philosophical issues that a growing population of AC will make increasingly pressing.