The age of machine autonomy?

Can machines be autonomous – or is it a human prerogative? This categorical question dominates many discussions on our relationship to purportedly intelligent machines. A human vs. machine rhetoric, however, does not get us very far. On the contrary, it even sidetracks us and distracts our attention from the more important issue of how these autonomous systems change the ways we humans relate to the world at large and to each other. In a much broader sense, robots – as simulated humans in particular – are bound to shake up the fundamentals of what we regard as human autonomy.