When the Algorithm Makes Decisions for You, Whose Head Does the Responsibility Fall On?

— Why Philosophy and Realistic Reflection Selected This Paper on "Ethical Coordinates in the Age of Artificial Intelligence"

Featured Reading Guide · Editor's Note

Philosophy and Realistic Reflection (PRR) 《哲学与现实反思》

Volume 03 | Issue 02 | October 2026

I. What This Article Is Answering: Not "Anti-AI," but Re-Asking the Ethical Attribution of Technology

When you leave the house in the morning, navigation chooses the fastest route for you; when you look for a job, your resume is filtered out by an algorithm before you even see it; when you want a loan, on the other side of the screen sits a model you can never fully read. We enjoy the convenience of artificial intelligence while quietly wondering: this thing is getting smarter and smarter—if it makes a mistake, who is responsible?

The paper featured in this issue does not simply blame "runaway technology" or "regulatory absence." Instead, it places the question back into the coordinates of philosophical history and takes it apart anew: it traces, from the origins of responsibility ethics, who should be accountable for black-box decisions; examines, from an epistemological angle, how deepfakes erode the very concept of "truth"; reflects, through the philosophy of subjectivity, on how human–machine dependence erodes the essence of the human; and assesses, at the level of political philosophy, the boundaries and possibilities of technology governance. The paper's conclusion can be condensed into one sentence:

The core philosophical question of the age of artificial intelligence is not "can a machine replace a human in making decisions," but "as algorithms penetrate public life ever more deeply, are people still willing and still able to take responsibility for their own choices."

II. Why PRR Selected It: This Journal "Was Born to Take on This Question"

The editorial mission of Philosophy and Realistic Reflection (PRR), as stated clearly on its official website, is to "focus on philosophical theory and realistic issues, covering ethics, philosophy of technology, social currents, and reflection on the value of the human." Its scope of submissions does not merely engage in inward-looking textual and conceptual research, but explicitly accommodates philosophical responses to contemporary social issues—cross-disciplinary frontiers in ethics, philosophy of technology, social philosophy, and political philosophy all being included.

Look at the broader landscape of international philosophy journals: many lean toward classical exegesis, analytic technique, and conceptual deduction, and treat living, tangible pain points such as "algorithmic bias," "deepfakes," and "human–machine emotional dependence" as "not philosophical enough." PRR's positioning precisely fills this gap—bringing philosophy back from the study to the crossroads, to the job-application mailbox, and to the living room of an elderly person living alone.

So this article is not "chasing a hot topic," but a concentrated development of the journal's positioning:

First, solid theoretical coordinates. The paper draws on Jonas's The Imperative of Responsibility to pursue the long-term consequences of technological civilization, uses Turing's "imitation game" to cut into the boundaries of subjectivity, and employs a teleological perspective to examine the instrumentalization of the human by algorithms—each point supported by a clear philosophical genealogy, not vague generalities.

Second, small realistic entry points. It writes from "a loan denied for reasons unknown" up to the larger structure, and from "a synthetic video shattering trust" up to the epistemological crisis of public life—concrete in its points of entry, yet with sufficient theoretical depth.

Third, clear ethical orientation. It neither opposes technology nor is blindly optimistic, but asks "what kind of person do we want to become"—which is precisely the distinctive contribution of philosophy as distinct from policy reports and technology commentary.

III. The Value of Publication: A Threefold Significance for "Readers, Authors, and the Discipline"

1. For Readers: Translating "Unease" into Thinkable Questions

Many people face AI with only a vague anxiety—"fear of being replaced," "fear of being deceived," "fear of losing control"—but cannot articulate the structure of that anxiety. The articles in this issue give readers a set of conceptual tools: it turns out that the "algorithmic black box" is not merely a technical defect but a structural rupture in the chain of responsibility attribution; that "deepfakes" are not merely fake videos but a systematic corrosion of the infrastructure of public trust; and that "human–machine dependence" is not merely a change of habit but a quiet surrender of subjectivity amid convenience. Philosophy here is not chicken soup, but the capacity to "name the unease."

2. For Authors: Giving Realistic Philosophy Researchers a Venue Where They Are Seen

Scholars working on technology ethics, AI philosophy, and critique of digital society often find themselves in a dilemma: submit to a pure philosophy journal and be faulted for "too much empirical flavor"; submit to a computer science or law journal and be faulted for "insufficient theoretical depth." PRR offers a third possibility: reality-oriented philosophical depth. This article proves that analyzing autonomous-driving accidents with responsibility ethics, discussing deepfakes with epistemology, and examining human–machine relations through the philosophy of subjectivity are legitimate and cutting-edge philosophical work.

3. For the Discipline: Pushing "Philosophy of Technology" from Warning to Construction

In the past, critiques of technology often stopped at sighs such as "alienation is tragic, can the system be controlled?" This issue does not stop at critique but takes a step further: the paper sorts through the risk-classification logic of the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act, pointing out that the very definition of "high risk" is saturated with value controversy; it reminds us that legislation is only a starting point, and that genuine ethical norms must be achieved by each industry translating "human dignity" into operable standards. This accords with the trend of contemporary philosophy of technology "moving toward action": value-sensitive design, responsible innovation, and embedded ethics.

IV. Contribution to the Journal's Development: Distinctiveness, Innovation, and Identity

1. Distinctiveness: Real Pain Points + Philosophical Depth

The cover language of most open-access philosophy journals is "Being, Time, Dialectic"; PRR's cover language for this issue can be: "black box, deepfake, dependence, responsibility." The distinctiveness lies in using classic philosophical frameworks to explain contemporary AI dilemmas without shutting people out with academic jargon. Readers recognize at a glance: this is a PRR piece, not someone else's.

The journal's editorial board spans contexts across the United States, Canada, China, Norway, Mexico, Argentina, and beyond, and this article naturally lends itself to multi-civilizational dialogue: the Western tradition of responsibility ethics, continental European critique of technology, East Asian understandings of "truth" and "trust," and the Global South's experience of resisting algorithmic colonization. This cross-cultural openness distinguishes PRR from journals that serve only a single academic community.

2. Innovation: Old Problems, New Fields; Old Concepts, New Flesh

Innovation is not about coining new buzzwords, but about letting theoretical works from decades ago explain today's algorithmic decisions. The articles in this issue achieve innovation in three ways:

Conceptual-transfer innovation. Jonas's 1979 The Imperative of Responsibility is migrated from the context of nuclear technology to the context of AI, proving that the core proposition of "responsibility for long-term consequences" is not only not outdated in the algorithmic age, but even more urgent.

Problem-framing innovation. "Deepfake" is transformed from a technical-identification problem into an epistemological problem—when truth loses its capacity for self-evidence, on what does public life still run? This way of posing the question is original in the philosophical literature.

Argument-path innovation. Rejecting the binary of technological optimism/pessimism, it replaces the presupposition of an "answer" with the metaphor of a "coordinate system"—philosophy does not provide ready-made solutions, but it does provide a sense of direction.

3. Identity: A Stable Sign of Cross-Culture and Everyday Concern

PRR's editorial team includes Professor Albrecht Classen of the University of Arizona (United States), Professor Stanley Tweyman of York University (Canada), Professor Zheng Shuhong of Sun Yat-sen University (China), Professor Kjetil K. Haugen of Molde University College (Norway), Professor Brian Hibbs of Dalton State College (United States), Professor Jorge Rodas-Osollo of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (Mexico), and Professor Gabriel Zanotti of the University of El Salvador (Argentina), among other leading scholars from many countries. This international configuration is not decoration but a methodological resource—it gives the journal the capacity to examine the global issue of AI ethics simultaneously through multiple lenses: North American philosophy of technology, European responsibility ethics, the Chinese Confucian distinction between human and animal, and Latin American liberation philosophy.

This positioning of "cross-cultural realistic philosophy" carries recognition among global open-access philosophy journals. It helps the journal consolidate a long-term reusable academic signature: the realistic philosophy track of "technology–ethics–cross-cultural dialogue." In the future, when scholars mention "in-depth philosophical analysis of AI ethics plus a global perspective," they will think of PRR having systematically devoted an issue to it.

V. What Is the "Strategic Move" of This Issue's Selection

It is not a hastily assembled hot topic, but a deliberate move to build a section:

• Establish a label. PRR = the philosophy journal that dares to engage AI's real problems.

• Cultivate an author community: attracting sustained submissions from young scholars in technology ethics, AI philosophy, and critique of digital society.

• Expand readership: scholars look at frameworks, ordinary readers look at themselves; teachers can teach it, public accounts can excerpt it.

• Strengthen dissemination: gold open access + featured reading guide, with quotable and translatable conceptual golden lines.

• Engage international issues: echoing the EU AI Act, global AI governance dialogue, and the issues of digital rights and human dignity.

VI. Highlights Re-Extracted (Ready for the Official Website Abstract Card)

 

VII. Conclusion: Philosophy Is Not Decoration After Work, but the Navigation Instrument of the Technological Age

From Turing's 1950 "imitation game" to the artificial intelligence in everyone's pocket today, what changes is the technological shell; what does not change is the question:

Technology gives us a lever to move the world, but the longer the lever, the more someone is needed to press down on the other end to hold the direction.

PRR selected this article not because it is "timely," but because it speaks the journal's mission out loud: philosophy must return to the scene of life, preserving, for those scored by algorithms, troubled by deepfakes, and swept up in technological dependence, a measure of dignity and capacity for choice that cannot be quantified.

Next time you hesitate before a "system recommendation" on a screen, if you can ask one more question—"who, in the end, should bear the responsibility for this decision?"—then this issue's article will have done its job.

The Editorial Office of Philosophy and Realistic Reflection

October 2026 · Volume 3, Issue 2